/*«. 



685 

H164 

C Opy J 



F 685 KANSAS AND THE SUPREME COURT. 
H164 

copy * SPEECI 




OF 



JOHN Vf HALE, OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, 

Delivered in the United States Senate, January 19 and 21, 18-58. 



The Senate proceeded to the consideration of the motion 
to refer so much of the President's message as relates to 
Kansas affairs to the Committee on Territories. 

Mr. HALE. Mr. President, in addressing my- 
self to the Senate, on this occasion, permit me to 
say that I am not one of those who think that the 
introduction of this subject into the debates of 
the Senate was either premature or ill-timed. I 
believe that it was appropriately introduced ; that 
its introduction was expected by the public ; and, 
considering the extraordinary position of the 
President of the United States, I should think 
that those who differed from him widely upon the 
measure which is so prominent would have been 
derelict in their duty if they had failed to chal- 
lenge at the very outset the doctrine promulgated 
in his message. I may excuse myself — and I can 
only speak for myself, though it is not impossible 
that some friends who sympathize with me may 
have been governed by the same motive — when I 
say that thus far I have refrained from throwing 
myself prominently before the Senate and before 
the country on this question, for the reason that 
I believed there was a greater curiosity in the 
land to know what other men thought, and what 
they would say, than there was to know what so 
humble an individual as myself would say. 

Amongst those gentlemen for the expression of 
whose sentiments the public waited with deep 
and earnest and anxious solicitude, prominent 
stood the Senator from Illinois, [Mr. Douglas ;] 
and however I may animadvert upon his po- 
sition in some respects, I must do him the 
credit to say that in that emergency he fully 
met the public expectation, and frankly and ably 
met the issue which the President had tendered 
to him. So far I accord with him ; and as I 
accord with him on one other point, I may 
as well mention it at once, and then go on to the 
divergence. I agree with him in opposing this 
Lecompton Constitution, in opppsing the recom- 
mendation of the President to force it on the 
necks of an unwilling people ; I agree with him 
there entirely and fully ; but I am not opposed to 
the Lecompton Constitution, I am not opposed to 
the President's attempt to force it on the necks 
of that people, I am not opposed to this attempt 
to substitute force for reason, because it is con- 
trary to the principles and policy of the Nebraska 
bill, but because it is in exact conformity with 
them, part of the original programme, carrying it 
out, if not in letter, in spirit exactly. Sir, if 
there has been a controversy between that dis- 
tinguished Senator and the President of ihe 
United States, I think the palm of victory must 
be awarded to the President, and that notwith- 
standing he was out of the country, away over in 
England, discharging the high diplomatic duties 
which Lis country had devolved on him, I think 
when he undertakes to bring in the Federal army to 
force this Constitution on the people of Kansas, he 



shows that he understands the Nebraska bill just 
exactly as well as if he had been here, part and 
parcel of it at the time it was passed. That is 
the reason why I am opposed to this measure. 
I was opposed to the bill ; I have been opposed 
to it in its origin, in its progress, in its consum- 
mation, and in its effects. I was opposed to the 
planting of the seed, to its swelling and bursting 
into life, to its spreading foliage, and I am opposed 
to the ripe fruit which we are about to gather 
from it. Having said that, I come back to s-ay 
what the object of the bill was. 

I have but one rule by which to judge of the 
objects of a public act, and that is, by reading 
it ; and thus seeing what its purport, meaning, 
object, and intent is, as embodied in the bill it- 
self. I do not go to the motives of individual 
gentlemen who voted for the bill, and ask them 
what it means ; and if I were in a court of law, 
and the construction of the Kansas-Nebraska act 
was up, and I could bring the affidavit of every 
man thatrvoted for it, and they should swear that 
it was not their intention to introduce Slavery 
into any Territory or State, that would not be 
received by the court ; it would not begin to raise 
a presumption a3 to what the intention of the 
act was. But, sir, you must look to- the act it- 
self, to the history of the times in which it was 
passed, and to the state of things to which it was 
made to apply, in order to get at its object. 

The Kansas-Nebraska bill on its face professes 
to be a very harmless affair. The gist of it is 
comprised in these few lines : 

"It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to 
legislate Slavery into any Terriiory or Slate, nor to ex- 
clude, it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof per- 
fectly free to form and regulate their domestic institution-? 
in tLeir own way, subject only to the Constitution of the 
United Slates." 

We begin to understand something of the great 
popularity of this bill at the South. It is be- 
cause Congress most graciously condescends to 
inform the slave States that they do not mean 
to abolish Slavery in those States — "it being 
the true intent and meaning of this act not to" 
" exclude Slavery from any State.'' The Repre- 
sentatives of those States must have breathed 
more freely, as Mr. Webster said on another oc- 
casion, when they were assured that Congress 
did not mean to abolish Slavery in their States. 
We had said so individually, over and over again; 
but I take it the public mind must have been 
put at rest when it was embodied in a solemn 
legislative enactment, that the Congress of the 
United States did not mean to abolish Slavery 
in any State. The act goes further, and assures 
us of the free States that Congress did not mean 
to legislate Slavery into our States. Sir, this 
was gracious and gratuitous. I do not know 
how gentlemen may receive it ; but I tell the 
Congress of the United States, that when they 






declare that they do not mean to legislate Sla- 
very into New Hampshire, and when the Supreme 
Court of the United States say they mean to ad- 
judicate that it is there or is not there, I will 
Ming it in their face, with the contempt that such 
a gratuitous offer deserves. I shall have some- 
thing to say about the Supreme Court by and 
by ; and lest I should shock the sensibilities of 
some men who look with great reverence on that 
tribunal, I shall preface my remarks, in regard 
to it, with some extracts from the writings of 
Jefferson, as a sort of breaking-up plough, before 
I come with a sub-soil one. I shall come to that, 
however, presently. 

I aver here that the object of the Nebraska 
bill was to break down the barrier which sepa- 
rated free territory from slave territory ; to let 
Slavery into Kansas, and make another slave 
State, legally and peacefully if you could, but a 
slave State anyhow. I gather that from the his- 
tory of the times, from the character of the bill, 
from the measure, the great measure, the only 
measure of any consequence in the bill, which 
was the repeal of the Missouri restriction. I 
know gentlemen say they did not mean it, but I 
cannot deal with individuals. I must deal with 
the act and with the Government ; I must deal 
with the purport of the act, and the policy of 
the Government in passing it. I know no other 
rule by which to judge of an act, but to examine 
.the natural and legitimate consequences that are 
to follow from it. In discussing this matter, I 
may say some things that have been said by 
.others, and possibly some that have been said by 
.myself before ; but the difficulty is, that these 
obnoxious doctrines are pushed at us so fre- 
quently that in meeting and resisting them, it 
sometimes becomes necessary to travel over 
ground which has been occupied before. 

I say, then, sir, that the rula by which to judge 
of the intent, the object, the purpose of an act, 
.is to see what the act is calculated to do, what 
its natural tendency is, what will in all human 
probability be the effect. Before the passage of 
the Kansas-Nebraska act, there stood upon your 
. statute-book a law by which Slavery was pro- 
hibited from going into any territory north of 
- ,36° 30 / . The validity and constitutionality of 
that law had been recognised by repeated de- 
, cisions of the courts of the several States. If I 
..am not mistaken, I have a memorandum by me, 
showing that it had been recognised by the 
Supreme Co.urt of the State of Louisiana. So 
far as. I know, the constitutionality of that en- 
actment was unquestioned, and the country had 
reposed in peace for more than a generation un- 
der its operation. By and by, however, it was 
discovered to be unconstitutional, and it was 
.broken down. The instant it was broken down, 
. Slavery went into Kansas ; but still, gentlemen 
tell us they did not intend to let Slavery in ; that 
was not the object. Let me illustrate this. Sup- 
pose a farmer has a rich field, and a pasture ad- 
joining, separated by a stone wall which his 
fathers had erected there thirty years before. 
The wall keeps out the cattle in the pasture, who 
are exceedingly anxious to get into the field. 
.Some modern reformer thinks that moral suasion 
will keep them in the pasture, even if the wall 
should be taken down, and he proceeds to take 
it down. The result is, that the cattle go right 
in ; the experiment fails. The philosopher says : 
" Do not blame me ; that was not my intention ; 
but it iB true, the effect has followed." I retort 



upon him : " You knew the effect would follow ; 
and, knowing that it would follow, you intended 
that it should follow." 

But, sir, we are not without the book on this 
subject, if we are compelled to go to the avowed 
declarations and sentiments of the gentlemen who 
advocated the bill. An honorable Senator, who 
usually sits before me, but who is not now in his 
seat — I mean the Senator from South Carolina, 
[Mr. Evans,] and I may say of him, what I would 
not say if he were present, a man in whose heart 
and in whose lips there is no guile and no de- 
ceit, a man who could not utter a falsehood if 
he tried -7- in 1856 delivered a speech on thia 
question, in which he divulged and laid open, as 
his own character is, the purpose he had in vo- 
ting for the bill. He was speaking for the South, 
and no man of all the South controverted him, 
and said nay. I will tell you what he said — I 
shall not use his very words, but I will state his 
argument fairly. He referred to a declaration of 
the honorable Senator from* Massachusetts, [Mr. 
Wilson,] and said the Abolitionists had avowed 
that it was their intention to abolish Slavery in 
the Territories and in the District of Columbia, 
and he apprehended that their purpose was to 
abolish it everywhere when they could, and that 
they would, when they got into power, abolish 
Slavery, not only in this District and in the Ter- 
ritories, but in the States. He said that that 
consummation was to be reached by an amend- 
ment to the Federal Constitution authorizing 
Congress to do this, which requires the assent of 
three-fourths of the States ; and in this view of 
the controversy, one slave State was as good as 
three free States ; and, therefore, as a guarantee 
against the encroachments of the Anti-Slavery 
spirit, they wanted Kansas for a slave State. 
That is the argument of the honorable Senator 
from South Carolina. It is the truth — no more 
true after he said it than it was before ; no more 
palpable to any man who would not see after the 
avowal, than it was before. 

That was the purpose ; but the bill itself says 
its object was to leave the people "perfectly free." 
It seemed to intimate that we had a kind of free- 
dom in this country before, but it was an imper- 
fect sort. They were mere tyros, those old men 
of the Revolution, those gray-headed sages of the 
Federal Convention, hoary and venerable with 
age, ripe with experience, honored and venerated 
for their lives of fidelity and of valor ; they had 
but an imperfect notion of freedom. It was re- 
served to the new lights of this latter day to dis- 
cover and proclaim to the world what perfect 
freedom was, and the illustration was to be 
made in Kansas. I shall trace the history of it 
presently. It seemed to be implied that there 
never had been perfect freedom in the formation 
of any Constitution before. I stand here, sir, 
amid the representatives of thirty-one States, a 
majority of whom, I think, have emerged from a 
Territorial condition to one of State sovereignty ; 
and I ask the Senators from each and every one, 
if, in the formation of your State Constitutions, 
your people did not enjoy perfect liberty ? Was 
any restraint imposed upon you ? In the case 
of California, it was said that her Constitution 
was formed under the prestige of a military proc- 
lamation issued by General ,Rlley ; but 1 ask 
the Senators from California, called as that Con- 
vention was, whether, when the delegates got 
together, they did not exercise perfect freedom, 
and form and submit to Congress just exactly 



the Constitution which the popular sense of the 
State demanded ? I ask the Representatives of 
those States carved out of the Northwestern Ter- 
ritory, where the great ordinance of Freedom, 
which is attempted to be stricken down, was in 
force, whether, when they came to deliberate 
upon the high question of the formation of a 
State Constitution, preparatory to their admis- 
sion into the Federal Union, they were not per- 
fectly free ? Was any restraint imposed upon 
Ohio, that giant State of the West ? Did she 
inscribe Freedom upon her Constitution, con- 
trary to the wishes of her people, at any one's 
behest? Was it so in Illinois? Was it so in 
Indiana? Has any State of this Union, any- 
where, formed a Constitution, and presented it to 
Congress, without the exercise of perfect free- 
dom ? If there be any, let them speak. No, sir ; 
it is not true. Our fathers knew what perfect 
freedom was, and they exercised it. I have in- 
quired as to the new States, aud no man gain- 
says me. Now let me ask, how was it in the old 
States? Were their Constitutions formed under 
restraint, or were the people of each and every j 
one of these confederated States perfectly free in j 
the formation of their Constitutions ? No one 
will deny that they enjoyed perfect freedom. 

Having stated what I believe to have been the 
object of the bill, I propose to inquire how per- 
fect freedom has been carried out in Kansas. 
Another term became popular about the same 
time, about which I have a word to say, and I 
will carry it along with perfect freedom — and that 
is "popular sovereignty." What has been the 
history of the application of "perfect freedom" 
and " popular sovereignty " to Kansas ? The peo- 
ple of Kansas were to have the real, the unadul- 
terated, the genuine " perfect freedom." They 
were to illustrate the great doctrine of popular 
sovereignty as it never had been illustrated on 
this continent before. What was the first step ? 
In the first place, you made a code of laws for 
these sovereigns. You would not let them begin 
under their own laws. To start with, you piled 
upon them every law that Congress, in its wis- 
dom or folly, had ever made, from the beginning 
of the Government to the passage of that act, 
except, as Mr. Benton well said on another oc- 
casion, a little short act, not as long as your fin- 
ger, made expressly for them, and the only one 
in the whole nine volumes that was made for 
them, and that was one abolishing Slavery. That 
act you excepted ; but you piled upon them every 
other law you had passed, without distinction, 
except those which were locally inapplicable. 
You made a Governor for them ; you appointed 
their marshals, their attorneys, and all their of- 
ficers ; you made their laws, and sent the men to 
administer them. Thus you started them on the 
great career of developing and illustrating popu- 
lar sovereignty. 

What was the next chapter ? You left to them 
on paper the poor privilege of voting ; and having 
been nattered into the idea that they were a com- 
munity of popular sovereigns, I suppose they 
came together with high hopes of manifesting 
that sovereignty at the first opportunity which 
presented itself; and that was when an election 
came off for members of the Territorial Legis- 
lature. When that came, what did they find? 
Did a mob go over from Missouri ? No, sir. I 
will not do them that discredit. There was not 
a mob, but an army there — an army with flags 
flying, drums beating, with tents and all the par- 



aphernalia and equipments of an army. They 
went over, took possession of the Territory, drove 
the popular sovereigns from the ballot-box, sub- 
stituted the cartridge-box for the ballot-box, 
elected their own men, and then went back over the 
river, singing their songs of triumph, and pro- 
claiming through the columns of the public papers 
in the State of Missouri the great victory which 
they, by their prowess, had achieved. This was 
the second illustration of popular sovereignty in 
the history of Kansas. 

If I understand the history of the times, I am 
not speaking of matters in regard to which there 
is any dispute or controversy. About some 
things there may have been some doubt, some 
cavil, some controversy ; but I believe the truth 
of the statement will not be disputed, that at the 
first election in "Kansas for members of the Ter- 
ritorial Legislature, the legal voters were forcibly 
expelled, and illegal voters took possession of the 
ballot-boxes. It is wide of my argument to say 
in how many election precincts this was done. 
If it was done in one, that is enough for my ar- 
gument. I believe it was done in a majority of 
them ; but if it was done in one, all that I en- 
deavor to maintain is maintained by this argu- 
ment. I believe the fact which I bave stated 
will not be controverted. These men elected a 
Legislature, and they elected their own friends, 
as was natural. Having got possession of the 
ballot-box, they were not going to elect their an- 
tagonists. The Legislature came together, and 
what did they do ? How did they carry out 
" perfect freedom? " 

It is said now, that the controversy was nar- 
rowed down to the question whether they should 
have domestic Slavery in Kansas or not. For 
the purpose of my argument, I am willing to con- 
cede that. How was " perfect freedom " illus- 
trated on that question? The first Legislature 
passed an act making it a penal offence, punish- 
able by imprisonment in the penitentiary, for any 
man to deny that it was right to hold slaves there. 
This was a glorious chance for " perfect free- 
dom " and " free discussion " — was it not? I can 
imagine an assembly of the people called togeth- 
er, and they are about discussing the question of 
what policy shall be inaugurated there, what pol- 
icy shall be started in their laws; and the great 
question, which it is said is the only one that di- 
vides them, is brought into consideration, and 
one man gets up and argues in favor of Slavery. 
He says that it is right; that it is a divine insti- 
tution ; that it is one of those things which can 
be proved by the Bible, and by the Constitution, 
and by every other book that is worth quoting. 
He delivers an eloquent, able, and forcible speech, 
j demonstrating the propriety, the expediency, the 
j policy, and the righteousness of Slavery. After 
he has set down, having electrified the audience 
J and convinced their understanding, some man on 
\ the opposite side gets up. He says: " Mr. Pres- 
ident, I do not believe that Slavery is right." His 
antagonist gets up and calls on the marshal to ar- 
rest him, and put him in custody, for he has com- 
• mitted a State-prison offence the moment he openB 
his mouth, because he has'denied that it is right 
j to hold slaves in Kansas ; and that, by your au- 
; thority, by the Federal authority, is declared to 
I be a penitentiary offence. 

This Legislature undertake to regulate the right 

of suffrage there, and they make the right of suf- 

I frage dependent on the taking of a test oath to 

I support acts which I think — as we are now satis- 



fied a majority of the people of that Territory 
hold to be — wrong and abhorrent. But, sir, they 
cannot exercise the poor right, not of a sovereign, 
but of a citizen. They cannot go to the ballot- 
box and deposit a ballot for any officer there un- 
til they have taken these odious test oaths. That 
is the third chapter of popular sovereignty and 
perfect freedom in Kansas. I think the people 
of Kansas, by their experience thus far, have be- 
come convinced that they do not want any more 
perfect freedom ; but they would like a little of 
that imperfect kind which the people used to en- 
joy before the passage of this act. 

The Legislature thus imposed upon them by 
the people of Missouri, against their will, was im- 
posed by force, and not by fraud. I exempt them 
from that. They were no vulgar rascals that 
went over there. It was a conquering army. 
Having gone over, and thus elected a Legislature, 
and thus made a code of laws which made the 
annunciation of the great and eternal principles 
of Liberty a penitentiary offence, the Government 
was set in motion. What was the history of that 
Government ? One of lawless violence. Your 
marshal, appointed by the President of the United 
States, summoned together what he called a 
posse — not from Kansas, but from Missouri, by 
his written handbills sent over to Missouri — and 
with that fosse goes into the city of Lawrence to 
execuie some process. After the process is exe- 
cuted, he turns over his posse — he got them to- 
gether for a very innocent purpose— to Mr. Sher- 
iff Jones, and then .the law is executed by rifling 
the houses of Kansas ; robbing them even of the 
clothing of females and children ; the Lawrence 
hotel is sacked and plundered, the press taken 
and thrown into the river, and the town set on 
fire ; the inhabitants driven from their homes, 
houseless wanderers at midnight, without a place 
to lay their heads, and the flames of their burn- 
ing dwellings literally painting hell on the sky. 
These facts, just as notorious as the sun in the 
heavens, were perpetrated in Kansas, all known 
to you, sir ; all known to the President of the 
United States ; all known to the friends of pop- 
ular sovereignty and perfect freedom here, in this 
body, and not a single one of them has a word 
of condemnation for them. If there is one that 
lisps a single syllable of blame, he pours out 
twice as much condemnation upon the victims 
as he does upon the perpetrators of this outrage. 
Well, sir, we go on. This is but a specimen, 
and is not the whole history. I have not time 
to go over the whole of it. A second Legislature 
is elected, under the operation of these test oaths, 
and all these disqualifications. A second time 
the farce of an election is gone over, and that 
Legislature, that is to be elected, is about to take 
the initiatory steps for forming a State Constitu- 
tion ; and still, up to the second election, it is a 
State-prison offence to deny that it is right to 
Hold slaves in Kansas. A second election is had 
under all these disqualifications, a second chap- 
ter of "perfect freedom" and "popular sover- 
eignty 1 " That Legislature met. They took 
measures for calling a Convention of the people, 
and, to their credit be it said, they repealed two 
of the most obnoxious, the most odious, the most 
indefensible of their statutes — the one that made 
it a criminal offence to deny that it was right to 
hold slaves in Kansas, and the other imposing 
tesi oaths. Those, I believe, were all the altera- 
tions mat were made. They make provision ac- 
cording to law for taking the sense of the people 



and calling a Convention. I must hurry over 
these particulars. The Convention is called. 
It meets in September to frame a Constitution. 
Was it a Constitution that was to be framed and 
imposed upon the people of Kansas without their 
consent, and against their will? There were 
some factious Abolitionists and Black Republi- 
cans that did undertake to intimate such a 
thing, that this Convention might form a Con- 
stitution embodying Slavery in it ; and that it 
might be forced on the necks of the people by 
Federal power and Federal patronage without 
their consent. But, sir, when that suggestion 
was made, how was it met ? It was met on the 
part of these gentlemen by an indignant denial. 
I had not the pleasure of listening to the speech 
made by the honorable Senator from Michigan 
[Mr. Stuart] the other day; but I understand 
that he embodied in his speech a written pledge, 
which the leading gentlemen on that side of the 
question published and signed their names to, 
and sent it out to the country, denying the im- 
putation, and pledging themselves that the Con- 
stitution that they were about to form should be 
submitted to a popular vote. 

Under that pledge they were elected; but there 
were certain preliminaries which were to be gone 
through with — a census and a registry to be ta- 
ken and made in the various counties — before 
they were qualified to vote. The Territory of 
Kansas was divided, if I am not mistaken, into 
thirty -four counties; and we have the authority 
of Governor Walker for saying — it has never 
been controverted, and the honorable Senator 
from Ohio [Mr. Pugh] called upon the President 
for information on that fact, which was charged 
by Governor Walker, and I have never heard it 
denied — that in fifteen out of those thirty-four 
counties, steps were not taken by the Govern- 
ment, by which the people could come to the 
polls. The census and registry were omitted. 
So says Governor Walker in his letter. 

Such as it was, the Convention came together, 
elected under a pledge of many of its members 
to submit the Constitution to the people. They 
met in September. They took the initiative : 
they appointed their committees ; they laid out 
the work; and then they adjourned. I am not 
disposed to deny that that was proper; I suppose 
it was ; but there are some astonishing and cu- 
rious coincidences about this Convention. They 
adjourned to a period subsequent to the time 
when the people of Kansas were to vote for the 
election of a Territorial Legislature and a Dele- 
gate to this Congress. They adjourned to No- 
vember. The election took place in October; 
and then, for the first time, as the test oaths had 
been. repealed, the people of Kansas, without 
distinction of parties, went to the polls ; and the 
result was, that your Pro-Slavery Democracy 
found themselves in a minority of less than one- 
third. The people spoke, nay, they thundered 
at the polls; and they returned, by an over- 
whelming majority, a Free State Legislature and 
a Free State Delegate to the Congress of the 
United States. 

After this expression of public opinion on be- 
half of the people of Kansas, in November, this 
Convention, which was pledged to submit their 
Constitution to the people, had ascertained that, 
if they did submit it to the people, the people 
would reject it; and therefore, inasmuch as pop- 
ular sovereignty and perfect freedom were very 
good things to talk about, but very inconvenient 



when you come to submit them to a practical test 
at the polls, by a people that had already pro- 
nounced their opinions, it was thought that the 
safest and most convenient way was to violate 
their pledges, break their promises, and not sub- 
mit it to the people. They did not have the 
courage or manliness to do that right out, but 
they adopted a subterfuge. They undertook to 
adopt a mode by which the form3 of a submission 
should be had, while the substance was wanting. 
I will read to you an extract from a newspaper, 
and I think that will show you how it was under- 
stood by the friends of Slavery at that time. I 
read an extract from a letter published in the 
Mississippian of November 27th last, in which the 
writer says : 

"Thus you see that whilst, by submitting the question 
in this form, they are bound to have a ratification of the 
one or the other ; and that while it seems to be an elec- 
tion between a Fiee State and Pro-Slavery Constitution, 
it is. in fact, but a question of the future introduction of 
Slivery th-it is in controversy ; and yet it furnishes our 
friends in Congress a basis on which to rest their vindi- 
cation of the ac mssion of Kansas as a State under it 
into the Union, while they would not have it sent direct- 
ly from the Convention. 

" It is the very best proposition for making Kansas a 
slave State, that was submitted for the consideration of 
the Convention." 

Yes, sir, that is what they thought in the slave 
States ; that this Convention had adopted the 
very best mode that could be possibly devised 
for making a slave State of Kansas — and I agree 
to his judgment that it was ; because there was 
no legal way left by which a man could vote 
against Slavery. He voted for the " Constitution 
with Slavery," or the " Constitution without 
Slavery." But there is one remarkable fact, and 
I call the attention of the Senate to it, and it 
may explain the vote that was given : if they 
had adopted the Constitution without Slavery, it 
would have been a more stringent Pro-Slavery 
Constitution, than it would if they had voted for 
the Constitution with Slavery ; and I will tell 
you why. If they had voted for the Constitution 
with Slavery, they would have left the seventh 
article entire ; and the seventh article contains a 
provision for the future emancipation of slaves. 
This article says, in granting powers to the Leg- 
islature, in regard to Slavery : 

"They shall have power to pass laws to permit the 
owner of slaves to emancipate them, saving the rights of 
creditors, and preventing them from becoming a public 
charge." 

This seventh article, if that were voted in, gives 
the Legislature a right to provide for the future 
emancipation of slaves; but if that were voted out, 
it left in the schedule the only provision on that 
subject ; and in the schedule the provision is : 

" If, upon such exnmination of said poll books, it shall 
appear mat a majority of the legal votes cast at saiJ elec- 
tion be in favor of t.ie 'Constitution with no Slavery,' 
then the auicle providing for Slavery shall be stricken 
from this C>> siituiion by ihe President of this Conven- 
tion, and Slavery shall no longer exit in the State of 
Kansas, (ex< • pi ihat the right of property in slaves now 
in this Terriio y sluill in no manner be interfered with.") 

If they had voted out the Slavery clause, this 
provision, that the right of property in slaves 
should in no manner be interfered with, was left 
the permanent law. If they voted in the Slavery 
article, they voted a provision by which the Leg- 
islature might emancipate slaves ; and then 
further in the schedule they have a provision, 
that in all future alterations of their Constitution, 
no alteration shall be made to affect the right of 
property in slaves. That was the doing of this 
Convention, and that is called by Mr. Buchanan 



a submission to the people. Somehow, when I 
come to speak of Mr. Buchanan, I almost invari- 
ably call him Van Buren. I do not know why. 
There must be something similar in their char- 
acters. When you come to speak of it as Mr. 
Buchanan does, it seems to me that you cannot 
by any possibility vindicate it at all. 

But I wish to speak of this provision in the 
Constitution, that no amendment shall be made 
in reference to slaves. I know we are living in 
a day of new lights. New doctrines are con- 
stantly propounded, and some rampant Demo- 
crats of the new-light order laugh at such a con- 
stitutional provision as that. They say, no mat- 
ter if it be in there ; it is idle ; a majority of the 
people can come together and alter the Constitu- 
tion just as they please, or form a new one, not- 
withstanding that provision. I am not going to 
controvert that doctrine ; but I will say that the 
State which I have the honor in part to repre- 
sent used to be considered tolerably good Dem- 
ocratic authority ; and in our State we have 
never believed, and have never acted upon the 
belief, that a mere majority could come together 
and amend our State Constitution ; because our 
fathers inserted in the old Constitution a pro- 
vision that it should require a vote of two-thirds 
to amend it. The doctrine that a mere majority 
can alter the Constitution, never found favor 
there. We had, a few years ago, a Convention 
called to revise our Constitution, and the late 
President of the United States presided over it. 
They submitted a great many amendments, and 
the people voted on them and rejected them all. 
They then met together again, and submitted two 
specific amendments. The people came together, 
and, by a two-third3 vote, agreed to adopt one 
of those amendments ; and thereupon it was 
adopted, and is part of our Constitution. As to 
the other provision, the people voted by an im- 
mense majority, lacking a few hundred only of 
two-thirds, to adopt the amendment; but it was 
not adopted, and forms no part of the Constitu- 
tion. So, sir, Democratic as we have been, we 
have never held in our State, and never believed, 
and we have never had a man there who con- 
tended, that a mere democracy of numbers could 
uproot and overturn and eradicate and destroy 
the fundamental principle of our Constitution. 

Let me call your attention to another illustra- 
tion. We have a provision in the Constitution 
of the United States, by which an equal vote is 
secured on this floor to every State. Delaware 
with her ninety thousand people, and New Hamp- 
shire with her three hundred thousand, stand 
here voting equally with New York, with her 
three millions, and with Ohio and Pennsylvania 
with their two millionsi each. It may be that 
these little States do not send such able men as 
those great ones. All the preponderance which 
Pennsylvania or New York can claim, on account 
of the pre-eminent talent of the gentlemen whom 
they send to represent them, they are entitled to; 
but when we come to the sober matter of voting, 
our little States, with our handful of men, stand 
equal with the great Empire State of the Union ; 
and our fathers, in their wisdom, or their folly — 
I do not know what modern Democracy will call 
it — have provided, that in that feature the Con- 
stitution never shall be amended. Now, sir, I 
put it to you — I ask you if a mere democracy of 
numbers came together, in these United States, 
and undertook to make a new Constitution, and 
to strike out that great, radical, fundamental 



6 



principle, securing the equality of the States on 
this floor, if this Union would survive that act a 
day ? No, sir ; not a day. This Federal Con- 
gress never will assemble after that amendment 
to the Constitution shall be made. Do not talk 
to me about what numbers can do. There are 
some things numbers can do, and some things 
they cannot do. They cannot amend the Con- 
stitution of the United States in that behalf 
in which its framers said it should never be 
amended. Our fathers thought the equality of 
States on this floor was the great fundamental 
principle on which the Constitution should rest, 
and therefore they have said, that in that respect 
it shall never be amended. The framers of the 
Lecompton Constitution, in their wisdom, have 
thought that Slavery is the great corner-stone 
on which they can best erect an edifice of re- 
publican Government, and they have said, that 
in that respect it shall never be altered and 
never be amended. Now, sir, if a mere democ- 
racy of numbers may come together and blot out 
that feature of this State Constitution, I stand 
here in behalf of one of the smallest States of the 
Union, and I ask you what security, what guar- 
antee have we, that that same mad spirit, mis- 
called reform, will not undertake to strike down 
also this great fundamental principle of the Fed- 
eral Constitution ? I profess to be a good deal 
of a Democrat myself, and I am willing to carry 
out the Democratic principle as far as anybody ; 
but I believe that even Democracy itself, some- 
times, on extraordinary occasions, requires a lit- 
tle check. The fathers of the Federal Constitu- 
tion thought so. They thought equality of States 
was the great vital point which the hand of 
amendment should not touch. The framers of 
the Lecompton Constitution thought that their 
great fundamental corner-stone was Slavery, and 
they said that it should not be touched. With 
this I leave that point. 

Now, sir, what had the people of Kansas — 
sent into the wilderness to build themselves new 
homes, to subdue the forest, to carry the arts of 
civilization, of science, of learning and religion, 
and found and build there a new empire, under 
the guarantee of perfect freedom — a right to ex-, 
pect ? Had they not a right to expect, that when 
a Constitution was formed, they were to be heard 
upon it? Had they not a right expect it, when 
the delegates whom they elected had pledged 
themselves that they should have it ; when the 
President had sent out his Governor with instruc- 
tions that they should have it ; and when, as the 
President of the United States says, he and all 
his friends were pledged to it? 

I will read from his message : 

"The act of the Territorial Legislature had omitted to 
provide for submitting to the people the Constitution 
■which might be framed by the Convention; and, in Die 
excited state of public feeling throughout Kansas, an ap- 
prehension extensively prevailed that a design existed to 
force upon them a Constitution in relation to Slavery 
againit their will. In this emergency, it became my 
duty, as it was my unquestionable right — having in view 
the union of all good citizens in support of the Territorial 
laws— t express an opinion on the true construction of 
the provisions concerning Slaver? contained in the 
organic act of Congress of the 30th May, 1854. Con- 
gress declared it to lie 'the true intent and meaning of 
this act, not to legislate Slavery into any Territory or 
State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the peo- 
ple thereof perf-ctly free to form and regulate their do 
mestic institutions i their own way.' Under it, Kansas, 
' when admitted :is a State,' was to ' be received into the 
Union, with or without Slavery, as their Constitution may 
prescribe at the time of their admission.' 

''Did Congress mean by this language that the dele- 
gates elected to frame a Constitution should have author- 



ity finally to decide the question of Slavery; or did they 
intend, by leaving it to the people, that the people o( Kan- 
sas themselves should decide this question by a direct 
vote? On this subject, I confess I had never^entertained 
a serious doubt; and. therefore, in my instructions to 
Gov. Walker, of the 23th of March last, I merely said, 
that when ' a Constitution shall be submitted to the peo- 
ple of the Territory, they must be protected in the exer- 
cise oftheir right of voting for or against that instrument, 
and the fair expression of the popular will must not be 
interrupted by fraud or violence.' " 

I will not read much longer, but I wish to read 
this extract : 

" The friends and supporters of the Nebraska and Kan- 
sas act, when struggling on a recent occasion to sustain 
its wise provisions before the great tribunal of the Ameri- 
ca" people, never differed about its true meaning on this 
subject. Everywhere throughout the Union, they publicly 
pledged their faith and their honor that they would cheer- 
fully submit the question of Slaverv to the decision of the 
bona fide people of Kansas, without any restriction or 
qualification whatever." 

Then the President, after this avowal, goes on 
to say that that has been fairly done. Sir, it 
would be insulting to the intelligence of the Sen- 
ate and of the country, to argue the question 
whether it has been fairly done, any longer. 
This omission to submit the Constitution to the 
people of Kansas is not accidental. I am sorry 
to find, as I have found out this session, that the 
omission to put it in the original bill was not ac- 
cidental. We have a little light on this subject 
from a gentleman who always sheds light when 
he speaks to the Senate — I mean the honorable 
Senator from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Bigler.] He 
says that this was not accidental, by any means. 
He has spoken once or twice about a meeting that 
was held in the private parlor of a private gen- 
tleman. There was a good deal of inquiry and 
anxiety to know what sort of a meeting that was. 
The gentleman who owns the house said he did 
not know anything about it. That is not strange. 
The hospitable man let his guests have the use 
of any room they chose. The honorable Senator 
from Pennsylvania said this meeting was " semi- 
official." I do not know what kind of a meeting 
that was. I have heard of a semi-barbarous, a 
semi-civilized, and a semi-savage people ; I have 
heard of a semi-annual, and semi-weekly ; but 
when you come to semi-official, I declare it both- 
ers me. What sort of a meeting was it ? Was 
it an official meeting? No. Was it an unofficial 
meeting? No. What was it? Semi-official. 

I have never met anything analogous to it but 
once in in my life, and that I will mention by way 
of illustration. A trader in my town, before the 
day of railroads, had taken a large bank bill, and 
he was a little doubtful whether it was genuine 
or not. He concluded to give it to the stage- 
driver, and send it down to the bank to inquire 
of the cashier whether it was a genuine bill. The 
driver took it, and promised to attend to it. He 
went down the first day, but he had so many 
other errands that he forgot it, and he said he 
would certainly attend to it the next day. The 
next day he forgot it, and the third day he forgot 
it ; but he said, " to-morrow I will do it, if I do 
nothing else ; I will ascertain whether the bill is 
genuine or not." He went the fourth day, with 
a like result ; he forgot it; and when he came 
home, he saw the nervous, anxious trader, want- 
ing to know whether it was genuine or not ; and 
he was ashamed to tell him he had forgotten it, 
and he thought he would lie it through. Said 
the trader to him, "Did you call at the bank?" 
" Yes." " Did the cashier say it was a genuine 
bill ? " " No, he did not." " Did he say it was 
abadone?" "No." "Well, what did he say ?" 



" He said it was about middling — semi-genuine." 
I have never learned to this day whether that was 
a good or a bad bill. They used to say, in Gen- 
eral Jackson's time, that he had a kitchen cabi- 
net as well as a regular one. This could not be 
a meeting of the kitchen cabinet, because it sat 
in a parlor. It was semi-official in its character 
also. 

Again, sir, there is another thing remarkable 
about this meeting. The Senator says : "It was 
semi-official, and called " — it was a called meet- 
ing ; it was not a mere accidental gathering of a 
few gentlemen, coming in to pay their respects to 
the distinguished Senator in his hospitable man- 
sion ; it was "semi-official, and called." For 
what? "Called to promote the public good." 
Yes, sir ; a semi-official meeting, called to pro- 
mote the public good. And what did it do ? The 
honorable Senator from Pennsylvania says : 

" My recollection was clear, that I left the conference 
under the impression tha* it had been deemed besi to 
adopt measure* to admit Kansas as a State, through the 
agency of one po^ul^r election, aid that for delegates to 
the Convention. This impression was the stronger, be- 
cause I thought the spirit of the bill infringed upon the 
doctrin* of non-intervention, to which ! had great aver- 
sion ; but with the hope of accomplishing a great good" — 
[the meeting was called for the "public good"]— "and as 
no movement had been made in that direction in the Ter- 
ritory, I waived thia objection, ai d concluded to support 
the measure. I have a few items of testimony as to the 
correctness of these impressions, and with their submis- 
sion I shall he content." 

Then he goes on to say : 

"I have beore me the bill reported by the Senator from 
Illinois, on the 7tn of March, IS .6, providing for the ad- 
mi?s ; on of Kansas as a State; the third section of which 
reads as follows : 

'• ' That ihe following propositions be, and the same ar» 
hereby, offered to the said Convention of the people of 
Kansas, when formed, for their free acceptance or rejec- 
tion; which, if" accepted by the Convention, and raiified 
by the people at the election for the adoption of the Con- 
stitution, shall be obligatory upon the United States and 
tne said State of Kansas ' 

" The bill read in place by the Senator from Georgia, 
on the 25th of June, and referred to the Committee on 
Territories, contained the same section, word for word 
Both the«e bills were under consideration at the confer- 
ence referred to;" — [two bills under consideration at 
this semi-official meeting I] — "but, sir. when the Senator 
from Illinois reported the Toombs bill to the Senate, with 
amendments, the next morning it did not contain that 
portion of the thrid section which indicated to the Con- 
vention that the Constitution should be approved by the 
people." 

The result of this semi-official meeting, called 
for the public good, was, that the bills came into 
the Senate the next morning minus the clause 
submitting the Constitution to the people. It 
wa3 stricken out ; but the honorable Senator does 
not impugn anybody, nor his motives, because he 
say3 : 

"Who struck the words out, or for what purpose they 
were omitted, is not for me to answer." 

If it is not for him, it is not for me ; but I thought 
he had given a clue to the reason why they were 
struck out when he said the meeting was called 
for the public good. Undoubtedly they were 
struck out for the public good. Who struck them 
out seems to be a mooted question, as uncertain 
of an answer as that old question, " Who killed 
cock-robin?" I did not see the Senator when 
he delivered the speech. If I had, I should have 
watched him closely ; and it is possible that by 
some gesture, or some shake of the head, he would 
have determined who that "who" was ; but we 
are left in the dark. We do not know who it was. 
You see, then, that this was not accidental. A 
semi-official set of patriots, friends of popular 
sovereignty, and disciples of perfect freedom, 
called for the public good, in a private room, met 



together, and for peculiar reasons — that is what 
the Senator said — they determined to strike out 
of their bill the only redeeming feature in it, and 
that was the submission to the people of the ques- 
tion whether they would have Slavery in the Con- 
stitution or not. In that secret conclave, that 
semi-official meeting for the public good, these 
patriots put their heads together to strangle at 
the birth the only thing there was in their bill 
which ought to commend it to the real genuine 
friends of perfect freedom and popular sovereign- 
tv. Well, sir, I am learning something every day ; 
but I did not know, till that speech was made, 
that when we met here in official meeting, and 
matured hills and put them in shape, they were 
to be committed to the tender mercies of a semi- 
official meeting, to strangle and choke out of them 
everything that was worth the keeping the breath 
of life in. They struck down, then, that great 
principle of popular sovereignty— a principle in- 
estimable to freemen, formidable only to — semi- 
official patriots. [Laughter.] So that this was 
not accidental; it was purposely done ; and this, 
too, was done in the name of popular sovereignty ! 

Mr. President, I wish to say a word ahout that 
subject. Popular sovereignty, according to the 
idea of some gentlemen, if it ever existed in this 
country, had been in a state of catalepsy, until 
the Nebraska bill brought it into life. I have 
seen some specimens which I thought were gen- 
uine popular sovereignty, and some that I thought 
were spurious. I will tell you one. In January, 
1775, the people of that little State, of which I 
have the honor to be one of the representatives 
on this floor, met together — not in a private par- 
lor, but in a public hall— and they inaugurated 
liberty and law in the shape of a written Consti- 
tution, in which they ignored the existence of 
the King of Great Britain and his Parliament, 
and formed a Constitution for that State, in de- 
fiance of legal authority, eighteen months before 
the Declaration of American Independence, and 
before any other State on this continent had a 
Constitution. I have heard that honor claimed 
for Virginia. I have heard it claimed for South 
Carolina. Anybody who will read the history 
of the times, will find, that in January, 1775, 
eighteen months before the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, the people of the State of New Hamp- 
shire, in the exercise of a real, genuine, unadul- 
terated popular sovereignty, came together, ig- 
nored both the King and the Parliament, and 
spoke out, in the form of a written Constitution, 
the great doctrines of popular liberty regulated 
by a written. Constitution. That I call of the 
genuine kind. 

Again, when the delegates of these thirteen 
old States met together in conclave, and on the 
4th of July published their ever-memorable and 
immortal Declaration, in which they avowed that 
they held the people of Great Britain, as they 
held the rest of mankind, "enemies in war, and 
in peace friends," there was popular sovereignty 
of the genuine and the real kind. It was a pop- 
ular sovereignty to which those men pledged 
their lives, their fortunes, and their honor, to 
sustain ; and for the sincerity of their convictions, 
and the intensity of their devotion, they shed 
their blood like water, and never gave over until 
that great doctrine was embodied and made per- 
petual in the organized form of a written Consti- 
tution. 

There is another instance of popular sover- 
eignty in the history of the country from which 



■r^ rcme, that I have always looked upon with 
admiration the most profound. I refer to the 
revolution which brought Charles I to the block. 
The Commons of England, by a resolution, blot- 
ted out the House of Lords, and resolved that the 
Commons of England had the right of sovereignty 
in them, Kings and Lords to the contrary not- 
withstanding ; and they determined to bring 
Charles I to trial. Passing by all the organized 
forms of law, ignoring the House of Lords, ig- 
noring all the organized forms in which justice 
had been accustomed to speak in her established 
tribunals, the old Commons of England came to- 
gether, and resolved that they, and they only, 
were the sovereigns of England; that the House 
of Lords was a useless appendage ; that the 
machinery of their judicial tribunals was not 
made for such an occasion, nor fitted for such an 
emergency, and they resolved themselves into a 
great high court, and they determined, in the 
exercise of that sovereignty thus organized, to 
summon before their bar the King on his throne. 
Yes, sir, they said that the King on his throne 
should come down from his high estate, from his 
elevation of regal sovereignty, and, face to face, 
before the assembled Commons of England, he 
should plead like a criminal to the popular sov- 
ereignty of England. I have here a sketch of 
the address that the old President read to the 
King when he came in. They were assembled 
in the great hall. Old President Bradshaw 
with his crimson robes sat on his high seat, and 
around him were the Commons. At last the 
great doors of the hall were thrown open, and in 
marched the King of England. No hat was ta- 
ken from the head ; no man rose to do him rev- 
erence. There was no indication that anything 
but a common criminal stood before a high court. 
The old President rose and said : 

■'Charles Stuart, King of England, the Commons of 
England, assembled in Parliament, being depply sensi- 
ble of the calamities that have been brought upon this 
nation, (which is fixed upon you as the principal author 
of it.) have resolved to make inquisition for blood ; and. 
according to that debt and duty which they owe to jus- 
tice, to God, the kingdom, and themselves, and accord 
itig to the fundamental power that rests in themselves. 
they lave resolved to bring you to trial and judgment ; 
and for that pu-pose have constituted this high court of 
justice before which you are brought." 

Oh, sir, that was judgment; there was nothing 
semi about that. The King undertook to cavil 
with them, and ask them by what authority they 
tried him; and the President replied, "By the 
authority of the people of England." The King 
cavilled for several days. He undertook to play 
the king; he undertook to set off regal sover- 
eignty against popular sovereignty ; and anybody 
that reads Hume's History of England, and takes 
it for the truth, will read that the King main- 
tained that to the last. It was not so. When 
regal sovereignty and popular sovereignty thus 
came in conflict in England, the King endeavored 
to play the king for a little while, but at last he 
cowered and quailed, and became a poor sup- 
pliant criminal before the Commons of England. 
They tried him ; and at last they came to a con- 
clusion, and pronounced a sentence on him, which 
I will read, for it is very brief. After reciting the 
charges that the people of England had brought 
against him, the President said : 

" Fo^ all which treasons and crimes this eourt'doth ad- 
judge that h», the said Charles Stuart as a tyrant, traitor, 
and murderer, and a publie enemy, shall be put to deathj 
by the severing of his head from his body." 

And they carried it out. They carried it out 
right speedily, too ; for I think in about three 



days the proud King of England, the successor 
of the imperious Elizabeth, of the bloody Mary, 
of the cruel and tyrannical Henry VIII, of the 
lion-hearted Richard, of the Norman conqueror 
William, the descendant of that long line of 
Kings, bowed his head upon the scaffold ; and it 
was severed from his body in vindication of the 
great doctrine of popular sovereignty in England. 
The shadow of that great event has rested upon 
the British throne ever since. God bless those 
old Commons for it. Liberty is safer to-day in 
the country from which we came, and the coun- 
try in which we are, on account of the fidelity 
with which those old Commoners maintained, 
carried out, vindicated, and executed, the great 
doctrine of popular sovereignty. Sir, they wrote 
it in the blood of Kings on the eternal page of 
history, where all nations may read it; and as 
long as English history lasts, all time will not 
efface it. 

When I contemplate that sublime exhibition 
of popular sovereignty, and compare it with 
your poor, pitiful bantling, the Kansas-Nebras- 
ka act, the only object of which was to oppress 
the weak and hold the humble in subjection to 
their masters, I confess, sir, Young America 
notwithstanding, I prefer that old popular sov- 
ereignty of the Commons of England, two hun- 
dred years old, to the modern specimen which 
you are to-day illustrating in Kansas. Let me 
hear no more of popular sovereignty until we 
get something of the genuine about it. 

It was not my fortune to be in the Senate the 
other day, when the honorable Senator from Cal- 
ifornia [Mr. Broderick] spoke. I believe he 
joins with me in repudiating this attempt. I 
think that he is in error in one thing, and he will 
pardon me for telling him so. He lays it to Mr. 
Buchanan, and he says Mr. Buchanan is the guilty 
cause of it. Sir, I speak of Mr. Buchanan, as I 
am going to do, under a sense of duty. I have 
no unkind feelings towards him, certainly. In 
the course of my duty, as I performed it accord- 
ing to my convictions, I had occasion in the last 
Congress to say something of General Pierce, 
not unkindly I hope. I told him what he did 
not believe at the time, but what he has since 
found out to be true. I told him that you were 
using him, and that when you had used him, you. 
would throw him away ; that you had no more 
idea of again making a President of him, than 
you had of one of those pages. He did not be- 
lieve me. I think he does now. I thought you 
would be a little more generous to him than yon 
were. I thought you would go to the Conven- 
tion, and resolve to have a majority of two-thirds 
to nominate, and that you would pay him the 
poor compliment of running him u p to a majority 
of one ; but the fact was, you felt so awfully 
doubtful, whether, if you undertook to run him 
up to a majority, he might not get the requisite 
vote, and be nominated, that you said, it is a 
dangerous experiment, and we will not try it ; 
and Pierce went without even that empty com- 
pliment. I told him this on the floor of the 
Senate, and he and his friends had no more 
sense than to get offended at it. 

Now, what I am about to say of Mr. Buchanan, 
I hope he will not get offend ed at. I shall be 
sorry if he does ; but I tell j'ou, Mr. Buchanan 
is not to blame. Mr. Buchanan is not a man to 
shape events ; he is not a man to control the cur- 
rent of public opinion — he nor Pierce either, 
nor both together. They are not the men to give 



9 



direction to the current of human events. They 
are mere vanes, placed on high places, showing the 
direction and the strength of that current which 
is bearing our national ship to her destiny — that 
is all. The policy which Mr. Van Buren is carrying 
out — there it is again — I mean Mr. Buchanan — 
was indicated in this country long ago. I have 
before me a document published in 1844, con- 
taining the correspondence in relation to the an- 
nexation of Texas. Our Secretary of State, Mr. 
Upshur, in a letter to Mr. Murphy, our minister in 
Texas, said : 

"The establishment, in the very midst of our slavehold- 
ing States, of an independent Government, forbidding- the 
existence of Slavery, and by a people born, for the most 

fiart, among us, reared up in our habits, and speaking our 
anguage, could not fail to produce the most unhappy ef- 
fect? upon both parties." 

That is the policy ; the establishment of a free 
State is a calamity ; it produces unhappy effects ! 
That was said in reference to Texas. In no sense 
can Texas be said to be in the midst of our slave- 
holding States, that will not apply with equal or 
greater force to Kansas. You have the doctrine, 
then, that the establishment of a free State, pro- 
hibiting the existence of Slavery, produces un- 
happy effects ; and to that policy, that the estab- 
lishment of a free State is an evil, the Government 
has adhered with a tenacity like death, and with 
a directness of purpose that is not equalled by 
the mode in which the needle points to the pole. 
There is no variation of the needle there to be 
calculated. The means by which this policy was 
to be effected, was indicated by an article in the 
Richmond Enquirer, which said that the desert- 
ing Democrat who opposed the Administration on 
this vital measure would have nothing to expect. 
There is a simple policy, and a simple mode of 
carrying it out. A free State is an evil, and the 
public patronage is to be used to prevent it! 
That is it; it is very simple ; and anybody who 
wants to get the true clue to this whole matter, 
anybody who wants to get hold of the thread to 
lead him out of the labyrinth in which we are 
now lost, will find it in this simple avowal of 
policy, that a free State produces unhappy ef- 
fects, and that the Federal patronage must be 
used to prevent it. In other words, the repre- 
sentatives of the people are to be paid with the 
people's money to prevent the establishment of 
free States. That is a fair and honest transla- 
tion of it. 

This brings me to another part of my subject, 
in answer to a question which the honorable Sen- 
ator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] propounded, 
when he asked if he was to be read out of the 
party for a difference on this point. I have great 
regard for the sagacity of that honorable Senator, 
but I confess it was a little shaken when he asked 
that question ; is a man to be read out of the 
party for departing from the President on this 
great cardinal point ? Why, sir, he asks, is a man 
who differs from the President on the Pacific 
railroad to go out of the party? Oh no, he may 
stay. If he differs on Central America, very 
good ; take the first seat if you please. You may 
differ with the President on anything and every- 
thing but one, and that is this sentiment, which 
I shall read ; Mr. Buchanan shall speak his own 
creed. On the 19th of August, 1842, in the Sen- 
ate, Mr. Buchanan used this language : 

"I might here repeat what I have said on a former oc- 
casion''— [you see it was so important he must repeat 
it] — "that all Christendom" — [mark the words] — "is 
leagued against the South upon this question of domestic 
Slavery." 



All Christendom includes a great many people. 
If that be true, and if you have got any allies, it 
is manifest they must be outside of Christendom, 
because Mr. Buchanan says all Christendom is 
against you ; but still he leaves you some allies, 
and you will see — it is as plain as demonstration 
can make it — that your allies are not included in 
Christendom. Where are the allies ? I will 
read the next sentence : 

"They have no other allies to sustain their constitu- 
tional rights except the Democracy of the North " 

There is a fight for you : all Christendom on 
one side, and the Democracy of the North on the 
other. That is not my version ; it is Mr. Bu- 
chanan's. That is the way he backs his friends ; 
for he went on, after having made this avowal, 
to claim peculiar consideration from Southern 
gentlemen, and intimated that he might speak a 
little more freely, having previously endorsed 
them so highly as this. Well, sir, when all Chris- 
tendom was on one side, and the Democracy of 
the North on the other, and the Democracy of 
the North growing less and less every day — a 
small minority in the New England States — how 
could the Senator from Illinois be so unkind, or 
how could he doubt, if, on this vital question, he 
deserted the Democracy and went over to Chris- 
tendom, as to how the question would be an- 
swered whether he was to be read out of the 
party ? Read out, sir I That question was set- 
tled long ago. On this great vital question he is 
out of the party. 

I would not say anything unkind to that Sen- 
ator, nor would I say anything uncourteous in 
the world ; but my experience in the country life 
of New England does present to my mind an il- 
lustration which I know he will excuse me if I 
give it. A neighbor of mine had very valuable 
horse. The horse was taken sick, and he tried 
all the ways in the world to cure him, but it was 
of no avail. The horse grew worse daily. At 
last, one of his neighbors said: "What are you 
going to do with the horse?" "I do not know," 
was the reply; "but I think I shall have to kill 
him." " Well," said the other, " he'does not want 
much killing." You see, in ordinary times, and 
on ordinary questions, a little wavering might 
be indulged; but when it is on one ques- 
tion, and a great vital question, and all Chris- 
tendom is on the one side, and the Northern De- 
mocracy on the other, to gro over from the ranks 
of the Democracy to swell the swollen ranks of 
Christendom, and then ask if he is to be read 
out 1 I leave that point. 

I have said nearly as much as I propose to say 
on this part of the subject, and I come now to 
another branch of it. The tribunal which holds 
its session under us, seeing the unequal nature 
of this contest — seeing all Christendom on one 
side, and the Democracy on the other, with a 
magnanimity and chivalry which is uncalculating 
and generous — have thrown themselves into the 
breach on the side of the Democracy. I mean 
the Supreme Court of the United States. I be- 
lieve they have a rule in that court — and my 
honorable friend from Kentucky [Mr. Critten- 
den] will correct me if I am wrong in it — by 
which they will not allow anybody arguing a 
case before them to speak disrespectfully of any 
other branch of the Government. That is so. I 
believe we have not got any such rule here, and 
I am going to say of the Supreme Court that 
which truth and justice demand of me to say. 
I shall hold them as our fathers held the King of 



10 



Great Britain — "enemies in war, and in peace, 
friends." I was brought up with a hereditary re- 
spect for courts, but I have got rid of it. I began 
to get rid of it before I came here, but the pro- 
cess has been going on very fast ever since. The 
Supreme Court of the United States, in a decis- 
ion which they have ^recently made, have come 
down from their place, and thrown themselves 
into the political arena, and have attempted to 
throw the sanction of their names in support of 
doctrines that can neither be sustained by au- 
thority nor by history ; and I propose to show it. 
To prove that I do not speak altogether without 
the book on this subject, I wish to read to you 
from the opinions of Thomas Jefferson on this 
very Supreme Court, to show you that I am not 
the first man who has entertained doubts upon this 
point. Mr. Jefferson, in a letter to Judge Roane, 
dated Poplar Forest, September 6, 1819, says : 

'In denying the right they usurp of exclusively ex- 
plaining ihe Constitution,! «o further than you do, if I 
understand rightly your quotation from the Fedircdist, of 
an opinion that L tliejudiciary is the last resort in relation 
to the other departments of the Government, but not in rela- 
tion to the rights of the parties to the compact under 
which the judiciary is derived.' If this opinion be sound, 
then, indeed, is our Constitution a. complete felodese. For 
intending to establish three departments, co-ordinate and 
independent, that they might check and balance one 
another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of 
them alone the right to prescribe rules for the govern- 
ment of the others, and to that one, too, which is une'cct 
ed by, and independent of. the nation. ***** 

"The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing- 
of wax. in the hands of the judiciary, which they may 
twist and shape into any form they please. It should be 
remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that 
whatever power in any Government is independent is 
absolute also; in theory only at first, while the spirit of 
the people is up. but in practice as fast as that relaxes 
Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the peo- 
ple in mass. They are inherently independent of all but 
moral law. My construction of the Constitution is very 
different from that you quote. It is, that each department 
is truly independent of the others, and has an equal right 
to decide for itself what is the meaning of the Constitu 
tion in the cases submitted to its action, and especially 
where it is to act ultimately and without appeal. I will 
explain myself by examples, which, having occurred 
while I was in office, are better known to me, and the 
principles which governed them." 

Again, on the 28th September, 1820, in wri- 
ting to Mr. Jarvis, from Monticello, he says : 

" You seem, in pages 84 and 148, to consider the judges 
as the. ultimate nrb.ters of all constitutional questions— a 
very dangerous do'itrine indeed, and one which would 
place us under the despotism of an oligarch) . Our judges 
ate as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, 
with others, the same passions for party, for power, and 
the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is, ' bon? judicis 
est ompliare jurisdictionem. 1 and their power the more 
dangerous, as they are in office for life, and not responsi- 
ble, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. 
The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, 
knowing that, to whatever hands confided, with the cor- 
ruptions of time and party, its members would become 
despots." 

Again, writing to Thomas Ritchie, on the 25th 
of December, 1820, he says : 

a The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps 
of sappers and miners constantly working under ground 
to undermine (he foundations of our confederated fabric. 
They are construing our Constitution from a co-ordination 
of a general and special Government to a general and 
Rnpreme one alone." 

Again, in a letter to Archibald Thweat, dated 
Monticello, January 19, 1821, he says : 

''The legislative and executive branches may some- 
times err. but elections and dependence will bring them 
to rights. The judiciary branch is the instrument which, 
working like gravity, without intermission, is to press us 
at last inlo one consolidated mass." 

In a letter to Mr. Hammond, dated the 18th of 
August, 1821, Mr. Jefferson says : 

',' It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have 
never shrunk from its expression, (although I do not 



choose to put it into a newspaner, nor, like a Priam in 
armor, offer myself its champion,) that the germ of disso 
lution of our Federal Goverrment is in the Constitution 
of the Federal judiciary — an irresponsible body, (for im- 
peachment i« scarcely a scare-crow,) working like grav- 
ity by night and by day, gaining a little to-day and a liv 
tie. to-morrow, and advancins its noiseless s'ep, like a 
Ihief. over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall ba 
usurped from the States, and the Government of all be 
consolidated into one." 

I might stand here and read to you for a long 
time extracts from Jefferson, of the same charac 
ter. Indeed, I have marked some others, which 
I may possibly, if I have this speech printed, em- 
body in it. 

I have another authority, which, I have no 
doubt, will sound with more force to some, as 
Mr. Jefferson does not belong to Young America, 
This is in the same book, and the extract is to 
be found in the Appendix to the Congressional 
Globe, vol. 29, page 347. Mr. Toombs said : 

" The only difficulty on this point has arisen from some 
decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. It 
is true, they have talked vaguely about the doctrine of 
the general sovereignty of the Federal Government. I 
attach but little importance to'the political views of that 
tribunal. It is a safe depository of personal rights; but 
I believe there has been no assumption of political power 
by this Government which it has not vindicated and 
found somewhere." 

It was the opinion of that distinguished Sena- 
tor, that no assumption of political power by this 
Government had ever occurred which the Su- 
preme Court had not vindicated and found some- 
where. I think, if thiit honorable Senator were 
to review this subject now, with the increasing 
light of history, he would find, at least, one exer- 
cise of power by this Government which the 
Supreme Court of the United States have not 
vindicated, and have not found somewhere, 
though I think almost anybody else can find it 
everywhere ; and that is the power which was 
exercised prior to the Constitution, and under 
the Constitution down to the present time, and 
in force while I speak, on your statute-book, to 
prohibit Slavery in the Territories. That is an 
assumption of political power which the Supreme 
Court of the United States have not found any- 
where. While, as the distinguished Senator 
from Georgia says, there is no assumption of po- 
litical power by the Government which that 
Court have not vindicated, I tell him, whenever 
this Government has undertaken to act in the 
slightest degree in the exercise of its constitu- 
tional authority to limit or restrain Slavery, the 
Supreme Court have not found a place any- 
where where it could be vindicated or sustained. 

Mr. TOOMBS. That was true when uttered, 
but it is not so now. 

Mr. HALE. The honorable Senator says it 
was historically true when it was uttered, brit it 
is not true now. Well, it was not uttered a 
great while ago. They must have had a very 
sudden conversion, for the speech is not three 
years old. 

Mr. TOOMBS. The Dred Scott decision has 
been made since that. 

Mr. HALE. The Senator admits everything I 
said. I have not put before the Senate the posi- 
tion of these two illustrious names, one dead and 
the other living — Jefferson and Toombs — be- 
cause I want to invoke the sanction of their 
names to cover my opinion ; but I want to throw 
them out, so that those who are not advised 
upon the matter may not think that I am the 
first man who has ever attempted to lift that sil- 
ver veil with which this "veiled prophet" — the 
Supreme Court — hides the hideousness of its 



11 



features. Having said thus much, I come to the 
work. It is v that very Dred Scot case that I am 
coming to. 

There are two positions, and but two, in this 
decision, which I am going to examine. The 
Supreme Court of the United States have declared 
that the right to hold slaves, and to trade in 
slaves, was universally recognised in England 
and this country at the time of the American 
Revolution and the adoption of the Federal Con- 
stitution. That matter is so distinctly set forth, 
that I will send to the Chair an extract, and ask 
the Secretary to read it. 

The Secretary read it, as follows : 

"In the opinion of the couit, the legislation and histo 
riesofthe times, and the language used in the Declara- 
tion of Independence, show that neither the class of per- 
sons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descend- 
ants, whether they had become free or not, were then ac- 
knowledged as a part of the people, norin'ended to be in 
eluded in the general /words used in that memorable in 
strument. 

"It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public 
opinion, in relation to that unfortunate race, which pre- 
vailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the 
world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, 
and when the Constitution of the United States was 
framed and adopted. But the public history of every 
European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be 
mistaken. 

•' They had for more than a century before been regard- 
ed as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to 
associate with the white race, either in social or politi- 
cal relations ; and so far inferior, that they had no rights 
which the white man was bound to respect; and that 
the negro .niyht justly and lawfully be reduced to sla- 
very for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated 
aa an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, when- 
ever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at 
that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of 
the -white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals, 
as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, 
or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every 
grade and position in society daily and habitually acted 
upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of 
public concern, without doubting for a moment the cor- 
rectnessof this opinion. 

" And in no nation was this opinion more firmly fixed 
or more uniformly acted upon than by the English Gov- 
ernment and English people. They not only seized them 
on the coast of Africa, and sold them or held them in sla- 
very for their own use, but they took them as ordinary 
articles of merchandise to every country where they could 
make a profit on them, and were far m°re extensively en- 
gaged in this commerce than any other nation in the 
world. 

'•The opinion thus entertained and acted upon in Eng- 
land, was naturally impressed upon the colonies they 
founded on this side of the Atlantic. And, accordingly. 
a negro of the African race was regarded by them as an 
article of property, and held and bought and sold as such. 
in every one of the thirteen colonies which united in the 
Declaration of Independence, and afterwards formed the 
Consticution of the United States. The slaves were more 
or less numerous in the different colonies, as slave labor 
was found more or less profitable ; but no one seems to 
have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of 
the time." 

Mr. President, in the remaining remarks which 
I propose to submit to the Senate, I shall con- 
fine myself to two points or positions assumed in 
a paper which I hold in my hand, called " A re- 
port of the decision of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, and the opinions of the Judges 
thereof, in the case of Dred Scot versus John F. 
A. Sandford," protesting, however, that I refrain 
from an examination of any more at this period, 
solely for the want of time. The first of these 
points is the affirmation by the Supreme Court 
of the United States, that property in slaves is of 
the same right as all other property. The other 
is, that the right to hold and to traffic in this 
property, at the time of the American Revolution, 
and at the time of the adoption of the Federal 
Constitution, was so universally acknowledged 
and recognised in the country from which we 
came, and in this country, that no man thought 



of disputing it. An extract to that effect, from 
the opinion of the Court, has already been read 
from the desk by the Clerk. To these two points 
I shall confine my remarks, contending, in the 
first place, that the legal proposition asserted by 
the court is unsound and untrue, and not sup- 
ported by principle or authority ; and that what 
purports to be a statement of facts, is not sup- 
ported by the truth of history. 

The first proposition to which I have alluded 
is more distinctly and more fully expressed in 
the Constitution which has been framed by the 
Lecompton Convention, and I will read the state- 
ment as it is there expressed : 

"The right of property is before and hisher than any 
constitutional sanction, and the right of the owner of a 
slave to such slave and its increase, is thp same and as 
inviolable as the right of the owner of any property what- 
ever." 

I think the Lecompton Convention have the 
advantage of the Supreme Court in one respect ; 
they are a little more explicit. I have a higher 
respect for the Lecompton Convention than I 
have for the Supreme Court ; because the Le- 
compton Convention have placed this principle 
distinctly on paper, and there is no mistaking 
what they mean, while the Supreme Court have 
decided the same thing, but have not quite so 
explicitly expressed it to the apprehension of the 
common ear. Now, sir, I undertake to maintain 
that the principle thus asserted is not true ; and 
on this point I shall ask the attention of the Sen- 
ate to some authorities ; but, before coming to 
the authorities, let me state what I believe on 
this subject. 

I do not stand here to decide that legally there 
is such a thing as property in slaves. I am not 
discussing the moral question, but the legal one ; 
and I do not stand here to deny that there is, in 
the States tolerating Slavery, legal property in 
slaves ; for, in the free States, we have a qual- 
ified property in the labor of human beings. In 
the State in which I live, criminals, if tried and 
found guilty, are sent to the penitentiary for the 
public good, and any individual may contract 
with the warden having the custody of the pris- 
oners for their labor ; and, if the Legislature see 
fit, he may take the prisoners anywhere within 
the jurisdiction of the State, and his right in the 
labor of those convicts is recognised, and will be 
protected by the State and by its authorities. 
But, if the man thus using the labor of convicts 
in the State of New Hampshire should cro33 
over the Connecticut river, and undertake to quarry mar- 
ble in the Green Mountains of Vermont, he would find 
that his property ceased the moment he got over the river, 
and that the right which he had acquired in New Hamp- 
shire would not extend beyond the territorial li nits of the 
State imposing the servitude. Just exactly and precisely 
that is the right which the owner of a slave has to his 
property. He has a right to the property within the juris- 
diction which imposes the servitude; but the moment the 
slave goes beyond that, he is free. I do not rest this on 
my own assertion. 

There is another right of property — a general property — 
and that is a property in inanimate things, and in the 
brute creation. A man has a property in ahnrsr — ahorse 
in Maryland, for instance ; he goes with that horse from 
Maryland to Virginia, to Delaware, to any and to every 
State in the Union, traversing the Confederacy from one 
end to the o ther, and wherever and whenever he arrives 
in any one of the States, his right to property in the horse 
is recogni sed universally. More than that, sir: he may 
go outside the limits of the Union; he may to into the 
British, the Mexican, or the South American, possessions 
on this continent; he may go into the possessions of the 
savage tribes; and wherever he finds a cemmunity of 
men, civilized or savage, there his right of property in the 
horse will be recognised. Nay, sir, he may take lhat 
horse across the Atlantic, he may traverse all the king- 
doms of Europe, civilized and savage and semi-savage, 
and everywhere he will find his right of property recog- 



12 



nised. He may go, if he pleases, to the frozen regions of 
the north pole and may come down from there till he 
pants beneath the vertical rays of the tropical sun, and 
the horse is his ; and the-tribunals of ihe countries ■where 
he goes wi 1 vindicate his right. Why? Is it because 
each and every of these States has a statute, declaring 
that a man shall have property in a horse? No, sir. I 
apprehend there is no such statute in anyone of Ihem. 
The reason is, because, by the universal consent of man- 
kind, a horse is ihe subject of property; and when the 
horse was made he was made to be property, and man 
was made to own him. It rests upon no statute, and upon 
no speculation of philosophy. It goes back to the earliest 
period of recorded time. When the Almigiity created 
this broad earth, and gave it to man for a home, Ke gave 
it to him to cultivate ; He fill'd the land with cattle, and 
the sea with fish, and the air with fowls ; then He made 
man, and He (rave him this commission : " Have thru do- 
minion over the fish of ihe sea, and the fowls of the air, 
and the cattle, and over every creeping thing that creeps 
on the earth." But man, sir. immortal man-made in the 
image of God — He never said, " have thou dominion over 
him." No ; He reserved that last great work, man, for 
His own peculiar worship. 

That is the distinction. It is a distinction that has been 
recognised by every writer who has ever written upon 
the subject. It has been acknowledged by every cou t 
where civilization has instituted courts. It has been ac- 
knowledged by no States more freely, more readily more 
decisively, than by the slaveholdin? States of this Union. 
as I shall show by reference to decisions in Virginia' 
Maryland, and Louisiana. More, sir: the doctrines of 
the locality of Slavery, and the distinction between slave 
property and other property, has been recognised, with- 
out a dissenting voice, by the unanimous, uncontradicted 
concurrence of every member of that court called the 
Supreme Court of the United States. 

The first authority to which I ask the attention of the 
Senate on this point, is the opinion of the Supreme Court 
of the United States, in the somewhat famous case of 
Prigg vs. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to be 
found in 16 Peters. 594 ; 14 Curtis, 421. The court say : 

"By the general law of nations, no nation is bound to 
recognise the state of Slavery as found within its territo- 
rial dominions, where it is in opposition to its own policy 
and institutions, in favor of the subjects of other nations 
where Slavery is organized. If it does it, it is as a matter of 
comity, and not as a matter of international right. The 
state of Slavery is deemed to be a mere mun : cipal regula- 
tion, founded upon and limited to the range of the territo- 
rial laws." 

The court then proceed to quote several cases recogni- 
sing this principle. Judge McLean, in his opinion in the 
Dred Scott case, 19 Howard, 140, after quoting that 
authority, proceeds to say: 

"There was some contrariety of opinion among the 
judges on certain points ruled in Prigg's cas», but there 
was none in regard to the great principle, that Slavery is 
limited to the range of the laws under which it is sanc- 
tioned." 

That, then, was the deliberate, solemn opinion of the 
court, collectively and indiv'dually. The same doctrine 
is recognised in Jon^s vs. Vanzandt, 2 McLean, Circuit 
Court reports, page 596, where the learned Judge says : 

"Slavery is local in its character. It depends upon the 
municipal law of the States where it is established ; and 
if a person held to Slavery go beyond the jurisdiction 
where he is so held, and into another sovereignty where 
Slavery is not tolerated, he becomes free ; and this would 
be the law of these States, had the Constitution of the 
United States adopted no regulation upon the subject." 

This would have been the law of the States, had there 
been no regulation in the Constitution of the United States 
to the contrary; and more than that, the framers of the 
Constitution, each and every one of them, so understood 
the law. They understood the law to be, at the time of 
the adoption of the Federal Constitution, that a person 
held to service or labor by virtue of the local law of the 
State in which he was held, and going into another State, 
became free ; and to prevent the operation of that gener- 
al pri' ciple, they inserted this provision : 

"That no person held to service or labor in one State, 
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in 
consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharg- 
ed from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up 
on claim of the party to whom such service or labor is 
due." 

Why this negative introduced into the Constitution, de- 
claring thit a man should not be free by going from one 
State to another, if the men who framed that instrument 
had not understood that the law was so? Then, here is 
the decision of tne Supreme Court of the United States, 
and the decision of the Circuit Court, over which Judge 
McLean presides. I will now read a decision from Mar 
tin's Louisiana Reports. In Lunsford vs. Coquillon, 2 
Martin, u^w series, 401, the Supreme Court of Louisiana 
decided, according to the head note : 



" If the owner of a slave remove her from Kentucky to 
Ohio, animo morandi, she becomes free, ipso facto." 1 
In the course of the. opinion, ihe court say: 

" We conclude that the Constitution of the State of 
Ohio emancipates, ipso /ado. such slaves whose owners 
remove them into that State wiih the intention of residing 
ihere; that the plaintiff having been voluntarily removed 
into that State by her then owner, the latter s ubmils him- 
self, with every member of his family, white and black, 
and every part of the property brought with him, to the 
operation of the Constitution »nd laws of the State ; and 
that, as according to them. Slavery could not exist in his 
house — Slavery did not exist, there, and the plaintiff was 
accordingly as effectually emancipated, by the operation 
of the Constitution, as if by the act and deed of her former 
owner." 

The same doctrine is also found in another opinion of 
that same court — the SupremeCourt of the Stateof Louisi- 
ana— only that tl is case is a ereat deal stronger. I read 
the case of Mary Louise us. William C. Marot et al. The 
abstract of the case is : 

"The fact of a slave being taken to the Kingdom of 
France, or other country, by the owner, where slavery or 
other involuntary servitude is not t-lera'e'', operates on 
the condition of the slave, and produces immediate eman- 
cipation." 

The court held, in that decision, that, by 'aking a slave 
from Louisiana to France, where Slavery was prohibited 
by law, the slave, ipso fnelo, became free ; and when he 
came back into Louisiaua, the master could not reduce 
the slave again to Slavery. In aii"tner part of a recent 
decision, the Supreme Court' of the United States have un- 
dertaken to say that the condition of Slavery was only in 
a state of catalepsy while the slave was in a state of lib- 
erty; and that when he came back to a slave State, he 
could be again reduced to Slavery ; but such is not the 
doctrine of the court of Louisiana, and such has not been 
the doctrine of other courts. 

I have also a case from the Court of Appeals of the 
State of Maryland, (4 Harris and McHenry, 418,) where 
it appears that the petitioner stated his claim to freedom 
to arise under the laws of the State of Pennsylvania for 
the abolition of Slavey ; and in that case the court of 
Maryland held, that by taking a slave out of Maryland, 
and carrying him into Pennsylvania, he became free. He 
came back and resided in Maryland, but the court gave 
validity to the abolition of Slavery by the fact of his mas- 
ter carrying him into Pennsylvania, and he became free. 
All these decisions proceed on the assumption that Sla- 
very is local in its character. 

Now, sir, I have a case from the State of Virginia, 
which I think is stronger than any of those which I have 
read. In Hunter vs. Fulcher, (1 Leigh, 171.) I find this 
decision : 

"By statute of Maryland cf 1796, all slaves brought into 
that State to reside are declared free. A Virginia-born 
slave is carried by his master to Maryland; the master 
settles there, and keeps the slave there in bondage for 
twelve months, the statute in force all the time; then he 
brings him as a slave to Virginia, and sells him here. Ad- 
judged, in an action brought by the man against the 
purchaser, that he is free " 

So that you will see it is not the free States who alone 
have offended in this matter by abolishing your title to 
slaves when they come into their territory ; but as long 
ago as 1796, the State of Maryland manumitted the slsve 
of every man who came to reside there with his master. 
A planter went from Virginia into Maryland, and resided 
there with his slave until the slave became free ; and then 
went back into Virgiuia, and understook to reduce the 
slave to his possession again; but the highest court in 
Virginia held that by going into Maryland, the slave be- 
came free, and by going back to Virginia he did not 
again return to a state of servitude Tuat is the doctrine 
of Virginia. 

Let me state one other authority. I have a still stronger 
case. It is Fulton vs. Lewis, 3 Harris and Johnson, a 
case in the Court of Appeals in Maryland : 

" At the trial, the following facts were admitted in evi- 
dence : John Levant, a married man. being a native and 
resident of the Island of St. Domingo, removed from that 
place in July, 1793, flying from disturbances which then 
existed there, endangering the 1 ves and property of the 
inhabitants, and brought with him into this State three 
negroes, of whom the petitioner (now appellee) is one, 
who he then and before owned as a slave. That in May, 
1794, he sold the petitioner, as a slave, to William Clemm, 
who sold him as such to the defendant, (the appellant ) 
That said Levant arrived at Baltimore in August, 1793, 
and continued to reside there until some time in 1796. 
when he returned to the West Indies. The defendant 
thereupon prayed the direction of the court to the jury, 
that if they believed the facts, the petitioner was not en- 
titled to his freedom. This opinion the court [Scott, C. J.] 
refused to give, but directed the jury that upon these facts 
the petitioner ■was free. The defendant excepted ; and 
the verdict and judgment being against him, he appealed 



13 



to this court, where, the case was argued before Chase, 
Chief Justice, and Buchanan, Nicholson, Earle, Johnson, 
and Martin, Justices. 

"Glenn, for the appellant, contended that the act of 
1783, chapter 23, under which the petitioner claimed his 
freedom, meant only a voluntary importation of slaves, 
ajid not an lu.porlaiiou arising from absolute necessity, 
produced by causes over which the owner, as in this case, 
had and could have no control/' 

But the judgment was atlirmed,and the slave went free. 
Notwithstanding he came inio Maryland by a tempest, by 
the act of Providence, and not by the voluntary act of his 
master, so stringently did the State of Maryland construe 
this right ol property in slaves as a local right, that they 
determined that even when the act of God, contrary to 
the consent of hit master, brought the slave there, he be- 
came iree ; and so they gave him his freedom. 

In the opinion delivered by Judge Curtis, in the Dred 
Sect ease, he read a dissenting opinion from the late 
ru.ing in the Slate of Missouri. That dissenting opinion 
was pronounced by Judge Gamble, who said : 

'•In this State [Missouri] it has been recognised, from 
the beginning of the Goveri nient, as a correct position in 
law, that trie master who takes his slave to reside in a 
S'ate or Territory where Slavery is prohibited, thereby 
emancipates his slave." 

Judge Curtis goes on to say : 

'♦Chief Justice Gamble has also examined the decisions 
of the courts of other Stales ia which slavery is establish- 
ed, and finds them in accorduuee with these preceding 
decisions of the Supreme Couit of Missouri to which he 
refers. 

•■ It would be a useless paiade of learning for me to go 
over the ground which he has so fully and ably occu- 
pied ." 

In ihe opinion delivered by Judge McLean, in the Dred 
Scott case, he declares : 

■• i'here is no nation in Europe which considers itself 
bound to return to his master's fugitive slave, under the 
civil law or the law of nations. On the contrary, the slave 
is held to be iiee where there is no treaty obligation, or 
coapact in some other form, to return him to his master. 
The Roman law did not allow freedom to be sold. An 
ambassador, or any other public functionary, could not 
take a slave to France. Spain, or any oilier country of 
Europe, without emancipating him. A number ot slaves 
escaped from a Florida plantation, ai;d were received on 
board of ship by Admiral Cochrane j by the King's Bench 
they were held to be free.'' 

He mentions, also, a case that was decided as late, I 
think, as lb'23, in the Court of King's Bench, which is 
found m 3 Bowling and Ryland, page 679— Forbes «s. 
Cochrane. Cord Chief Justice Best, in delivering ihe 
opinion in thai ease, says: 

•the righl of Slavery is not a general right; it is a 
local right: it is spoken of by every writer that has ever 
written upon the subject as a local right/' 

Judge Best had not lead the Eecompton Constitution, 
noi the Dred Scott decision. He could not say now what 
he said then, thai every writer that had ever written on 
this subject had treated it as a local right. In the same 
opinion, says the learned judge : 

il Slavery is ;> local law; and if a man wishes to pre- 
setve uis sraves, let him attach them to himself by ties of 
affection, or make last the oars of iheir prison ; for ihe 
moment they get beyond his local limits, they have broken 
their chains and lone recovered their liberty." 

That same judge poes further, and says : 

•■1 go tunher : if a slave, acting upon his newly-acquir- 
ed rights of a free man, I ad determined to vindicate the 
rights of his nature, and, had said, I will not be forced 
back mio a stale oi slavery,' anu his death had ensued 
upon his resistance, it would have been murder in every 
individual who h-jd contributed to that deatn." 

The same judge, speaking of the slave, says: 

'•Whatever he may owe to the local law is got rid of 
the in menl he gets beyond the local limit." 

Speaking of an assertion that Mansfield was said to 
have made, that an action might be maintained on a con- 
tract lor the sale of a slave m England, Chief Justice 
Best says : 

•'1 can only say that I have searched with all the in- 
dustry of which 1 am master, and that I can find no sucn 
decision." 

This was a suit brought for the recovery cf certain 
slaves that escaped from Florida to Admiral Cochrane, 
and the judge expressed some doubts, or, at least, said it 
was not proved mat Slavery existed in Florida; but he 
says : 

•• If it did prevail there, it is a local law ; it is an anli- 
Chiistian law, ai.d it cannot be extended beyond the 
limits of its own Stale, nor be recognised in a country 
like this, where the courts of justice are regulated accord- 
ing to the law of nature and the revealed law of God." 

That was the opinion of the Court of King's Bench, in 
England, as late as 1822. I have shown you, by these 
quotations and these opinions, that up to the rendering of 
the opinion in the DreU Scott case, it was the law of these 



States severally, it was the law of the Supreme Court of 
the United Slates, it was the law of the highest judicial 
tribunal in England, that the moment a slave escapes 
ftom the territorial limits of the jurisdiction which im- 
poses the stale of servitude upon him, that moment he 
becomes free; and that in the exercise of ihe rights of 
freedom which he acquires by stepping out from beyond 
ihe local limits of the jurisdiction which impose slavery 
upon him, he is a man — to all intents and purposes a 
man ; and if an thempt is made by anybody claiming the 
right to reduce him to slavery, to take nim, and he resists 
aiid dies, the death of that slave is murder in every man 
who contributed to bring about lhat result. 

Sir. these are ihe great settled principles of the law, 
and they are not to be shaken to-day by any judicial as- 
sumption or any legal quackery on this subject. They 
stand immovable and immutable as the eternal founda- 
iions of truth. While civilized society maintains its tri- 
bunals and its organization, these principles will stand, 
and the Supreme Court of the United Stales will find that, 
like the waves of ihe ocean, they loss themselves against 
the rock-bound shores ; but they t ss themselves in vain, 
only to fall back whence they came. These are positions 
which cannot be shaken. They rest not only upon law, 
but upon humanity, upon reason, upon every conviction 
which belongs to human nature and to a common man- 
hood. 

Having disposed of that part of the case — and I think 
I have gone tar enough, so lhat any schoolboy in the free 
States, who has been to our common schools long enough 
to read, may confute and relute and conf. und forever 
the gros assumption of this court — 1 now p.oceed to the 
other point to which I proposed to address a few remarks; 
and that was, lhat at the lime of the adoption of the fed- 
eral Constitution, Slavery was so universally acknowl- 
edged and practiced upon, that nobody thought of ques- 
tioning it. The Supreme Court say : 

'■ It was regarded as an axiom in morals, as well as in 
politics, which no one thought of d.sputmg, or supposed 
to be open to dispute ; and men in every grade and posi- 
tion in society daily and habitually acted upon n in their 
private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, 
without doubling for a moment the correctness of this 
opinion." 

The "opinion" here alluded to was, " that the negro 
might justly mid lawfully be reduced to slavery for his 
benefit; " and they add : 

"And in no nation was this opinion more firmly fixed, 
or more unifoimly acted upon, than by the English Gov- 
ernment and English people." 

How is that? I Relieve the Supreme Court have not 
decided that ihe Revolution did not take place in 1776 or 
lhat the Declaration of Independence w^s not made about 
that same time ; but at the commencement of the eight- 
eenth century, abou' the year 1704, this opinion was Ten- 
derer by Lord Holt, in the case of Smith vs. Gould, re- 
ported in 2 Lord Raymond's Reports, U74. whinh was an 
action of trover for a negro. Lord Holt, speaking for the 
whole court, says: 

" This action does not lie for a negro more than for any 
other mar, for the common law takes no notice ofntgrces 
being different from other men." 

And in Salkeld's report of the same case, (2 Salkeld, 
666.) the same learned judge say s ; 

"Men may be the owners of property, and therefore 
cannot themselves be the subject of property. 

That was one hundred and fifty years ago. Then we 
come down to 1772, and we find Lord Chief Justice 
Mansfield deciding the Somerset case. 1 will read that 
decision : 

•' The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is in- 
capable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or 
political, but only by posiiive law, which preserves ils 
lorce long after the reason, occasion, and time itself, from 
whence it was created, is erased trom the memory. It 
is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but 
positive law. Whatever i .convenience s. therefore may 
follow from the decision, I cannot say this case is allow- 
ed or approved by the laws of Englard. and therefore the 
black must be discharged." 

Tnat was the law of England in 1772. Going back to 
the commencement of the. century, and coming down to 
1772. we find the same doctrine held. In the opinion I 
have already read of Chief Justice Best, he say*, that 
with the best industry he could give to the sul ject, he had 
never found that a contract for the sale of a slave was 
allowed in England. These were the doctrines of the 
courts. 1 have another aulhoiity, which I do net propose 
to put in as a judicial authority, but I propose to put it in 
to answer that pari of Ihe opinion of the Supreme Court 
in which they say this docirine has never been question- 
ed by anybody. I show you that it had been questioned 
by the judicial tribunals; it had been questioned by Lord 
Holt ; it had been questioned by Lord M'iisfi»ld : and in 
179U, immediately after the adoption of the Federal Con- 
stitution, the great orator of Ireland. (John Fhilpot Cur- 
ran.) speaking before a British court, said : 

" I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes 



14 



liberty commensurate with, and inseparable from, the 
British, soil ; which proclaims, even to the stranger and 
the sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British 
earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy, and 
consecrated by the genius of universal emancipation. No 
mailer in what language his doom may have been pro- 
nounced ; no matter what complexion incompatible with 
freedom an Indian or an African sun may have burnt 
upon him. ; no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty 
may have been eleven down ; no matter with what so 
lemnitie- he may have been devoted upon the altar of Sla- 
very ; the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Brit- 
ain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust j his 
soul walks abroad in her own majesty ; his body swells 
beyond the measure ot his chains that burst from around 
him, ? nd he lands redeemed, regenerated, and disen- 
thi ailed, by the irresistible Genius of Universal Emanci- 
pation " 

And yet, sir, in the face of these glowing declarations, 
of these sublime enunciations, of these eloqueiit tributes 
to the great principle of Liberty, your Supreme Court 
have come down from their bench, gone into the political 
arena and commenced their career by declaring that the 
right to hold and to Irade in slaves, at the time of the 
adoption of oar Constitution, was so universally recog- 
nised a.id practiced upon, that no man thought of ques- 
tioning it. I hive shown you that it was questioned in 
England ; that there were men high in position there, oc 
cupying exalted piaces in the kingdom of Great Britain, 
who had questioned the rightfulness of the traffic inslaves, 
and the right to hold slaves. I beg Senators to bear in 
mind the exact question which I am arguing. I am not 
introducing these instai ces here for idle declamation. I 
am no. int.'oducing them as part of an Anti-slavery' dis- 
course; but I am introducing them to prove to the ten- 
ate, to the country, ai.d to the world, that when they un- 
dertake to say that the right to hold _nd to traffic in slaves 
was unquestioned, they state that which cannot be sus- 
tained by history. 

Now, sir, how was it in this country? The Supreme 
Court say that this right was so well understood in this 
country, so universally acceded to, that even the great 
and sub ime truths which are embodied in the Declara- 
tion of Independence, which, if tney were uttered to-day, 
would be held to embrace ali mankind, did not embrace 
them at that time, because the opposite sentiment, that it 
was right to hold slaves, was so universal, so unques- 
tioned, and so unquestionable, that nobody thought of 
questioning it. I have been at some little pains to ascer 
tain what the views of some of the men in this ci uulry, 
about the time of the Revolution, and about the time of 
the adoption of the Federal Constitution, were. I begin 
■with North Carolina. I took that State first, because a 
distinguished senator fiom that State [Mr. Biggs] was in 
the chair yesterday, and I did not know but that he 
would be to-day; and I wanted to compliment him by 
putting his own State first. The first Provincial Congress 
of North Carolina, iseld atNewbern on the 24lh of August, 
1774, resolved— 

"That we will not import any slave or slaves, or 
purchase any slave or slaves imported or brought into 
this province by others, from any part of the world, after 
the 1st day of November next." 

That authority is to be found in ihe American A r chives, 
fourth series, first volume, page 735. Again, the Con- 
tinental Congress of the United States, October 20, 1774, 
formed an association or agreement, consisting of four- 
teen articles ; the second article of which is: 

" That we will neither import nor purchase any slave 
imported after Hie 1st day of December next, after which 
time we will wholly discontinue tne slave trade, and will 
neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we htreour 
vessels, nor sell our commodities nor manufactures, to 
those who are concerned in it." 

By the fourteenth article, they resolved : 

" And we do further agree and resolve, that we will 
have no trade, commerce, dealings, or intercourse what- 
soever, with any colony or province in North America 
which suall not accede to, or which shall hereafter vio- 
late this association, Out will hold them as unworthy of 
the rights of freeman, and as inimical to the liberties of 
this country." 

'ihat is to be found in the same volume, on page 915. 
Those men who would not agree that they would neither 
import nor purchase any s.ave after the 1st day of Decem- 
ber, were not worthy of social or business intercourse, 
and unworthy of the rights of freemen, and inimical to 
the liberties of the country. That agreement, or conven- 
tion, a? it is called, of the Continental Congress, made in 
1774, was signed by all the members, including George 
Washington and Patrick Henry, from Virginia, and two 
Rulledges from South Ctrolina. 

I come now to another State, Georgia. The Provincial 
Congress of Georgia, held at Savannah, on the 18lh of 
January, 1775, resolved : 

''That we will neither import nor purchase any slave 
imported from Africa, or elsewhere, after the 15th day of 
March next." 



George "Washington, in a letter to Charles Pinckney, 
Governor of Sjutn Carolina, on the 17th of March, 1792, 
says : 

'• I must say that I lament the decision of your Legisla- 
ture upon the question of imponing slaves after March, 
1793. I was in hopes that motives of policy, as well as 
other good reasons, supported by the direful effects of* 
Slavery, which at this moment are presented, would have 
operated to produce a total prohibition of the importation 
of slaves, whenever the question came to be agitated in 
any State that might be interested in the measure." 

In a letter to John F. Mercer, dated September 9, 1786, 
George Washington says : 

"1 never mean, unless some particular circumstances 
should compel me to it, to possess another slave by pur- 
chase, it being among my first wislies to see some plan 
adopted by which Slavery in this country may be abolish- 
ed by law." — Sparks's Life of Washington, vol. 9, p. 159. — 
Note. 

In a letter to Robert Morris, dated April 12. 1786, he 
says : 

" I hope it will not be conceived from these observa- 
tions that it is my wish to hold the unhappy people who 
are the subject of this letter in Slavery. I can only say, 
that there is not a man living, wno wishes more sincere- 
ly than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it; 
but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which 
it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authori- 
ty ; and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be 
wanted.' 1 — Sparks's Writings of Washington, vol. 9, p. 159. 

In a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, of the date of 
April 5, 1783, i.e says : 

•'The scheme, my dear Marquis, which you propose ax 
a precedent, to encourage the emancipation of the black 
people in this country from the state of bondage in which 
they are held, is a striking evidence of the benevolence 
of your Heart. I shall be happy to join you in so laudable 
a work ; but will defer going into a detail of the business ^ 
until I have the pleasure of seeing you." — Sparks's Wri- 
tings of Washington, vol. 8, p. 4 14, 415. 

I have Some other authorities. In the Convention 
which framed the Constitution of the United Slates, Col. 
Mason, of Virginia, an illustrious name in an illustrious 
Commonwealth, then and now, said : 

" Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The 
poor despise labtr when performed by slaves. They 
prevent the emigration of whites, who really enrich and 
strengthen a country. They produce the most pernicious 
effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a 
petty train. They bring thejudgment of Heaven on a 
country." 

Again, Mr. Mason is reported to have said : 

"He h Id it essential, in eve<y point of view, that the 
General Government should have power to prevent the 
increase of Slavery." 

That is to be found in the third volume of the Madison 
Papers, page 139L. Again, Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, 
afterwards Vice President of the United Slates, (page 
1394 of the same volume.) said : 

" He thought we had nothing to do with the conduct of 
the Stales as to slaves, but ought to be careful not to 
give any sanction to it." 

Mr. Madison (page 1429) "thought it wrong to admit 
in the Constitution the idea that there could be property 
in men " 

But there is another very important fact in the history 
of that Convention. They finally adjourned on the 17th 
day of September, 1787. On the 13th day of September, 
1787, after the discussions in the Convention had been 
listened to, after the sugges'ious of Colonel Mason, of 
Virginia, of Madison, and of othe* men of that day, who 
thought Slavery ought hot to be countenance! and allow- 
ed in the Consti ution, there came up the clause fixing the 
enumeration that was to be made to establish tie ratio 
on which. Representatives were to be chosen. As it read 
then, it fixed the number and said, " including those bound 
lo servitude." You will find on page 1569 of the third 
volume of the Madison Papers, that Mr. Randolph, of 
Virginia, moved to strike out the word " servitude," and 
insert "service" in its stead; and it was done unani- 
mously, said Mr. Madison, because the word " servitude " 
impli d the condition of slaves, and "service" described 
the obligations of free persons. So you find that those 
held to service are described in the Constitution, because 
the Convention unanimously thought that did not describe 
the condition of Slavery; and, therefore, they put -ser- 
vice. " instead of " servitude." These were the opinions 
of some of the men who were in the Convention that 
framed the Constitution. 

At the risk of being tedious, for I am not here to-day to 
make myself popular, but instructive, [laughter,] I will 
read a somewhat extended extract from another Southern 
author. I would send it to the Secretary to read, but I 
At? afraid he would not emphasize it properly, [laughter,] 
and I will read it myself. I read from Jefferson's Notes 
on Virginia, in which he treats on Slavery. It is a very 
curious coincidence, that when Jeff rson comes to speak 
of Slavery, he speaks of it in the same relation that Col. 



15 



Mason did; and the whole article on Slavery is put in 
under the head of "manners." I am not going to be 
drawn oil' into that field. Mr. Jefferson says : 

'•There must, doubtless, be an unhappy influence on 
the manners of our people produced by the existence of 
Slavery among us. The whole commerce between mas- 
ter and sia/e is a perpetual exercise of the most boister- 
ous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one 
part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our chii- 
• dren see this, and learn to imitate it; lor man is an im- 
itative animal. This quality is the germ of all education 
in him. From his cradle to his grave, he is learning to do 
what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive 
either in his philanthropy or his self-love lor restraining 
the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should 
always be a sufficient one that his child was present. 
But generally it is not sufficient. The parent siorms ; 
the child looks on ; catches the lineaments of wrath ; puis 
on lue same airs in the circle of smaller slaves ; gives a 
loose rein to Ins worst of passions; and thus nursed, edu- 
cated, and daiiy exercised in tyranny, cam ot bui be 
stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must 
be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals 
uudepraveu by such circumstances. And with what ex- 
ecration should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting 
one half the ci.izens lo trample on the rigins ot the other, 
transforms those into despots, and these 111(0 enemies, 
destroys Hie morals of the one pail, and the amor yatiice. 
of ihe oilier, tor, it a slave can have a country 111 this 
■world, it must he any otuerin preference to that 111 which 
he is bom to live and labor for another; in which he 
must loc-k up the faculties of his naiure, coiuribule as far 
as depends on his individual endeavors to ihe evanish- 
ment ol the human race, or entail his own miserable con- 
dition on the endless generations proceeding from linn. 

"Wiih the morals of the people, their industry also is 
destroyed, lor, in a warm climate, no man wnl labor for 
himselt who can make another labor for him. This is so 
true, that 01 the proprietors of slaves a very small propor- 
tion indeed are ever .-ecu lo labor. And can the liberties 
of a nation be thought secure, when we have removed 
their only firm oasis — a conviction in the minds of the 
people thai these liberties ate the gift of God? — that they 
are not lo be violated but wiih his wrath? Indeed,! 
tremble lor my country, when 1 reflect that God is jusi; 
toat his justice cannot sleep lorever; thai, cousideiing 
numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution 01 
the wheel of loilui.e, an exchange of situation, is among 
possible evcnls ; thai it may become probable by supernat- 
ural interference "Tne Aimigiuy has no atinouie which 
can lake sine with us in such a contest " 

So says Mr. Jetteison ; and yet ihe supreme Court say 
that 11 was unquestioned, and nobody thought of question- 
ing it at tne nine ol ihe American Kevofllou, and of the 
adoption of ihe Federal Constitution. These Motes ol 
Jellersou on Virginia, by the way, were first published, 
1 think, m t/bU or 17s2, during the Revolution, and before 
the adoption ol ihe Federal Constitution. The record 
coes not slop there. Mr. Jefferson was not the only man 
who entertained these sentiments on this subject at that 
lime and subsequently. 1 wilt reud an extract Irom ihe 
preamble ol ihe aci of the Legislature of Fenusylvania 
Which abolished Slavery in 17«0, and you will find lhat 
that is not "semi" on the subject. The Legislature 01 
Pennsylvania, in i76U, declare : 

'•And whereas ihe condition of those persons who have 
heretoiore been denominated negro and mulalo slaves 
has been attended with circumstances which not only 
deprived them ol the common blessing ihey were by 
naiure entitled 10, but has cast ihem 11110 me deepest afflic- 
tions, by an unnatural separation and sale of husband and 
■wife from each oilier and from their children ; an injury . 
the greatness 01 which can only be conceived by suppo- 
sing tnat we Wire in ihe same unhappy case. Injustice 
therefore, 10 persjns so unhappily circumstanced, and 
who, having no prospect before ihrm wherein they may 
resl iheir soirows and iheir hopes, have 110 reasonable 
inducement lo render ihe service lo society which lhey 
otherwise might, and also in grateful commemoration ol 
our own hap.jy deliverance irom lhat stale of uncondi- 
tional submission 10 winch we were doomed by the tyran- 
ny of Brilaiu : He it t7iacitd, That no child hereafter bom 
snail be a slave,'' &c. 

Patrick Henry, in a letter to Robert Pleasants, dated 
January 18, 1773, says : — 

"I believe a time will come, when an opportunity will 
be offered 10 abolish this lamentable evil Kverylhing 
we can do, is 10 improve it, if it happens in our day ; if 
not, let us transmit to our descendants, logeiher with ou 
slaves, a pity for th- ir unhappy lot, and our abhonence 
for Slavery. If we cannot reduce this wished for reform- 
ation to practice, let us treat the unhappy victims with 
lenity. It is ih-r furthermost advance we can make to 
wards justice ; it is a debt we owe to the purity of our re- 
ligion, to snow that it i« at variance with that law which 
warrants Slaveiy. I know not wfcere to stop. I could 



say many things on the subject, a serious view of which 
gives a gloomy perspective to future times " 

Again, John Jay— (of whom Webster sa ; !, that when 
ihe ermine fell on him, it touched nothing less pure lhan 
itself,) whose name and whose principles live to-day, in 
the second and third generations, son i-.nd gra dson, and, 
I believe, even to the fourth also, maintaining, in their 
purity, the same principles which illustrated ihe life of 
iheir illustrious ancestor; individuals whom it is my 
prido to number amongst my personal and dearest 
friends— said : 

'• The State of New Vork is rarely out of my mind or 
heart, and 1 am often disposed to write much respecting 
iis affairs; but T have so liule information as 10 its pres- 
ent political objects and operations, that I am afraid to 
attempt it. All excellent law might be made out of the 
Pennsylvania one, for the gradual abolition of Slavery. 
Till America comes into this measure, her prayers to 
Heaven will be impious. This is a strong expression, but 
it is just."' 

Joint Jay siid, in 17^0, Fat until America comes into 
tins measure for the abolition o; Slavery, shs cannot, in 
ihe penitence cf he-- stricken soul, look . p to Heaven, and 
say. ' Our Father," wit,, outbting guilty of impiety. Such 
was the opi: io 1 of John Jay. 

The recor 1 does rot stop there. WillUm Pinkney, of 
Maryland, in 17^9, the very ye:T of the adoption of the 
Federal Constitution, wnen the Supreme Court say there 
« s such a perfect Dead Sea in the public heart and 
public morals on this subject, in a speech in the Maiy- 
Ln 1 House cf D legates, said : 

■■ Sir, iniquitous and magidishonorable to Maryland is 
that dreary system of *^Hh bondages which her laws 
have, hitherto supported, with a solicitud ■ worthy of a 
better object, and her citizens by iheir practice counte- 
nanced. 

•■ Founded in a disgraceful truffle, to which the parent 
country lent her-fostering aid from motives of interest, 
but whFh ev»n she would have disdained lo encourage, 
had Ehiglend been the destined mart of such inhuman 
merchandise, its continuance is as shameful as its ori- 
gin. 

*" Wher fore should we confine the edsje of censure to 
our ancestors, or th se from whom they purchased! Are 
notwt equally guilty * They strewed around the seeds 
of Slavery; we cherish and sustain the growth. They 
introduced the system ; we enlarge, invigorate, and con- 
firm it." 

1 i-hall not detain the Senate longer by reading from the 
ecords and from our history what were Ihe opinions of 
the men of that day; and yet ihis Supreme Court have 
solemnly decided all this history out of being; have judi- 
cially declared— no sir, not judicially, but politically. 
I'hey have decided that Slavery and the slave trade, in 
the very day and lime that Pinkney, and Jay, and Jef- 
ferson, and Madison, and a 1 the great men who illustrate 
and adorn and embellish our history, were pouring forth 
imprecations and denunciations against the system, was 
sn unquestioned and unquestionable, that nobody thought 
of qu stioning it. The Supreme Court go further— I could 
forgive them almost ;nything else— and, as I understand 
i>, they heap reproach on our revolution sry history and 
our revolutionary men. The Chief Justice, speaking of 
the Declaration of Independence, says : 

" It then proceeds to say : ' We hold these truths to be 
s-lf-evid, nt: that all men are created equal; that they 
are endowed b> their Creator with certain inalienable 
rights; thet among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness; that to secure ihese rights, Governments 
are instituted, deriving their just powers from the con- 
sent oft :e governed.' 

" The general words above quoted would seem to em- 
brace the whole human fam'ly, and, if they were used in 
a similar instrument at this ay, wou : d be so understood, 
'•'ut it is tco clear for dispute, that the en laved A:rican 
race were not i tended to be included, and formed no 
p>r, cf the people who framed and adopted th s Declara- 
tion " 

Sir, the men who framed the Declaraiion of Independ- 
ence, the men who fought the battles of Liberty, and the 
men who wrote our Constitution, understood the meaning 
of language quite as well as the Supreme Court; and if 
I weie put on oath, I should say a little better They 
knew the circumstances in which they were placed; 
they knew the crisis in which they were called to live 
and to act; they knew that the experiments which had 
been m de from the beginning of lime up to that day, of 
free government, had been a failure; lhey knew that 
every effort and every attempt that oppressed man had 
made had failed ; and they felt lhat to them, at that time, 
and at that day, was committed, by t' e Arb.ter of nation- 
al destiny, the great question, 10 solve for themselves, for 
t eir posterity, for all coming limr, the great problem 
• hether man was capable of self-g«veri ment. They 
went into that contest, fully understanding the character 
of the strife by which their position was to be maintain- 
ed ; fully sensible of the character of the contest upon 



16 



which they had entered. They went into it, as has been 
well said on another occasion, poor in everything but 
faith and courage They were without arms, without 
wealth, without even a name amongst the nations of the 
earth, rebel provinces; but they were strong in faith, 
strong in hope, strong in patriot c impulse, and strong in 
their reliance on the Most High J and they went, taking 
their lives, their fortunes, and their honors, in their hand. 
Tney threw themselves into the world's Thermopylae of 
that day, and they decl-ired that they held certain great 
truths to be self-evjdent, and ihat among these truths 
was, that all men were, entitled to life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness. Why? Not because it was writ- 
ten in the musty folios of speculating philosophers ; not 
because it was found in the writings of patriots of other 
days ; not because their fathers had vindicated on the 
field of battle their right to be free; not because the old 
British Commoners had brought King Charles to the 
block; r;ot because tneir old Puritan anctstry, on the 
battle-field: ofNa^eby and ofMarston Moor, had written 
in their own blood, on their own country's soil, their de- 
termination to be free. No, sir, none of all these ; but .hey 
said that man was entitled to be fres, because he was 
endowed by his Creator with that right. They stopped 
nothing short of the throne of eternity. They ignored all 
human reasons, all human, platforms,, and all human au- 
thority, and with uncloud' d eye fixed their gaze upon 
the eiexnal throne, and laid the foundation of the institu- 
tions which they were to build, unon the eternal jus ice of 
God. 

That, sir, is what the revolutionary fathers did; and 
when the contist was ever, w' 'tie dust and the blcod 
of battle ha"d disappeared, anu ^ory stood upon the 
flagstaff c.f their banner, these old men issued a Declara- 
tion to the world. It was issued in 1783, the very year the 
war was over. " Let it be remembered," say they, " final- 
ly, that it has ever bees the pride and boast of America, 
that the rights for which she contended were the rights 
of human nature." They contended for no class, no con- 
dition. They contended for humanity. No matter, in 
the language of the Irish oraior, what complexion, in- 
compatibie with liberty, an Indian or an African sun 
may have burned upon him, when he standi erect in the 
image of his Maker, a man, then say the fathers of the 
Revoluion, " There stands one for v;"hom we have fought ; 
there stands a man who was involved in the great issues 
which led to the revolutionary war, and which we have 
vindicated with our blood." Tney continue, further : 

" If justice, good faith, honor, gratituce. and ail (he other 
qualities which ennoble the character of a nat on, ant 
fulfill the ends of Government, be the fruits of our estab- 
lishments, tiie cause >jf .Liberty will acquire a digi.ity and 
lustre which it has never yet enjoyed, and an example 
will be set which cannos but have the most favorable in 
flueiice on ihe rights of mankind. " 

There is the idea; true to vheir principles, true to the 
avowals of public sentiment with which they went into 
that contest. Peace came in 1783; and in 17S4 Thomas 
Jefferson, the immortal author of that immortal Declara- 
tion, began his labors in the Continental Congress, mov- 
ing that all the territory we then owned, and all the ter- 
ritory that we might thereafter acquire, should be forever 
free from what he considered the contaminating and 
blighting influences of Human Slavery. Those who are 
laboring with me in this great contest may take courage 
from the perse vtrarce with which Jefferson adhered to 
his policy. In 1783- ? 84-'85, and '86, the measure failed, 
but finally, in 17s7, it partially succeeded, and the ordi- 
nance was passed prohibiting Slavery from all the terri- 
tory which we then owned. Yet, sir, in view of all this 
history, written as with a sunbeam upon the very w^lls 
of the room in which this tribunal now assemble, they 
stand up in 1857, to declare to the world that the slave 
trade and Slavery were so universally recognised and 



acknowledged, that nobody questioned the rightfulness 
of the traffic, and nobody supposed it capable of being 
questioned. Not content with overturning the whole line 
of judicial authority to be found in eveiy nation of Eu- 
rope, and in every State of this Union, and of their own 
solemn recorded decision, they go on to make the avow- 
al; and then go further, and undertake to tesr from that 
chaplet which adorns the brows of the men of the Revo- 
lution the prouc 1 est and fairest of their ornamen.s; and 
that was the sincerity of the professions which they made 
in regard to the rights of human nature. It is true, the 
court in their charity undertake to throw the mantle of 
ignorance over these men. and say they did not under- 
stand what they meant. Sir, they did understand it, and 
the country understood it. There was a jealousy on the 
suiject of Liberty and Slavery, at that time, of which we 
are little prepared to judge at the present day. It is 
found beaming out on the pages of the writings of all 
these men. 

If the opinions of the Supreme Court are true, they put 
these men in the worst position of any men who are to be 
found on the pages of our history. If the opinion of the 
Supreme Court be true, it makes the immortal authors of 
the Declaration of Independence liars before God and 
hypocntes before the world ; for they lay down their sen- 
timents broad, full, and explicit, and then they say that 
they appeal to the Supreme Ruler of the universe for the 
rectitude of their intentions ; but, if you believe the Su- 
preme Court, they were 'merely quibbling on words. 
They went into the courts of the Most High, and pledged 
fidelity to their principles as the price they would pay for 
success; and now it is attempted to cheat them out of 
the poor boon of integrity; and it is said that they did 
not mean so ; and that when they said all men, they meant 
all white men ; and when they said that the contest they 
waged was for the right of ma- kind, the Supreme Court 
of the United States would have you believe that they 
meant it was to establish Slavery. Against that I protest, 
here, now, and everywhere ; and I tell the Supreme Court 
that these things are so impregnably fixed in the hearts 
of the people, on the page of history, in the recollections 
and traditions of men, that it will require mightier efforts 
than they have made or can make to overturn or to 
shake these settled convictions of the popular understand- 
ing and of the popular heart. 

Sir, you are now proposing to carry out this Dred Scott 
decision by forcing upon the people of Kansas a Constitu- 
tion against which they have remonstrated, and to which 
there can be no shadow of doubt a very large portion of 
them are opposed. Will it succeed? I do not know; it 
is not for me to say ; but I will say this : if you fort« 
that — if you persevere in that attempt— I think, 1 hope, the 
men of Kansas will fight. I hope they will resist to blood 
and to death the attempt to force them to a submission 
against which their fathers contended, and to which they 
never would ha^ submitted. Let me tell you, sir, ' I 
stand not here to use the language of intimidation or of 
menace; but you kindle the fires of c ; vil war in that 
country by an attempt to force that Constitution on the 
necks of an unwilling people; and you will light a fire 
ihat all Democracy cannot quench — »ye, sir, there will 
come up many another Peter the Hermit, that will go 
through the length and the breadth of this land, telling the 
story of your wrongs and your outrages ; and they will 
stir the public heart ; they will raise a feeling in this 
country such as has never yet been raised; and the men 
of this country will go forth, as they did of olden time, in 
another crusade ; out it will not be a crusade to redeem 
the deid sepulchre where the body of the Crucified had 
lain from the profanation of the infidel, but to redeem this 
fair^and, whLeh God has given to lie the abode of freemen, 
from the desecration of a despotism sought to be imposed 
u^on tham in the name of "perfect freedom " and ''pop- 
ular sovereignty." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




WASHINGTON, D. C. 

BUBLL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS, 
1858. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



016 089 551 2 



